Star Wars Celebration IV

I missed the previous 3 Celebrations. Mostly because I had no idea such a thing existed. 2 took place when I was effectively still in college and locked into finishing projects and drinking beer. The last one was on my side radar but took place in Indianapolis and I had no want to travel to such a place for a convention. I had no costumes at the time and no links to the Star Wars community; not to mention no one to go with me.

It was announced last year that the fourth Celebration would take place on the weekend of the 30th Anniversary of the release of the original Star Wars. It was rumored to be moving to Los Angeles. This excited me to no end as I now had a costume and links to the Star Wars community; not to mention I live in Los Angeles.

Soon after the dates and location were finalized: the convention would take place over Memorial Day weekend 2007 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The first official day of the convention would fall on Friday, May 25th 2007. 30 years from when all this madness was started.

I immediately began planning.

The first hurdle was getting tickets. Luckily the start time was Pacific Standard Time so I could get on it at work instead of losing 3 hours of lead time to people on the East Coast.

The second hurdle was whether or not to stay in a hotel. I originally decided to commute over the hill into downtown LA from Burbank. It would save money and I am close enough that it wouldn’t be too bad. I would pay for parking at the LACC and pay for gas and brave the morning commute. As I started researching what parking would cost and how long it can take to get to downtown from the valley in traffic and how much was going on at night and I quickly realized I needed to consider staying downtown.

However by this time most people I know had already booked hotel rooms with friends. I was lucky enough that an awesome couple I know, Paul and Lesley Farquar, had an open bed at the Wilshire Grand and offered it up to me for whatever I could afford to pay.

With everything set for the stay I could now look to getting my costumes ready.