Originally posted by: Zion
Sure, LA is not centrally located - in the United States. But really when you think about how many people come from other countries, it makes a lot more sense to have it in a city that is easier to get to from an international standpoint.
If pre-registration sales are down compared to C3, it isn't because of the location. It's because there isn't a new Star Wars movie coming out. The first three Celebrations happened right before the theatrical premieres of each prequel. C2 easily had many more attendees than C1, and C3 had close to twice as many as C2. (And that is why your lines to get into C3 were so bad lj. It's hard to get 40,000+ people into a convention smoothly when people start lining up hours before the doors open. I had a volunteer badge, so I just walked right in.
) C2's lines were horrible (my friend waited in line for 8 hours to get Carrie Fisher's autograph). But aside from the store line, C3 really wasn't that bad.
Sure, LA is not centrally located - in the United States. But really when you think about how many people come from other countries, it makes a lot more sense to have it in a city that is easier to get to from an international standpoint.
If pre-registration sales are down compared to C3, it isn't because of the location. It's because there isn't a new Star Wars movie coming out. The first three Celebrations happened right before the theatrical premieres of each prequel. C2 easily had many more attendees than C1, and C3 had close to twice as many as C2. (And that is why your lines to get into C3 were so bad lj. It's hard to get 40,000+ people into a convention smoothly when people start lining up hours before the doors open. I had a volunteer badge, so I just walked right in.
) C2's lines were horrible (my friend waited in line for 8 hours to get Carrie Fisher's autograph). But aside from the store line, C3 really wasn't that bad. I would add that people may not be coming also because of the bad experience encountered at the previous 3 celebrations. I only went to C3 so I could "complete the trilogy". It was icing on the cake that George was there (at the time). I honestly hoped that they wouldn't have a C4, but if they did, that it would be in LA so I could go just one day (if I wanted).
I think the other problem with getting that many people in is that they're all only going through 1 set of doors (at Indy). I always use Comic-Con as an example because they regularly have more than that amount of people and until two years ago, they didn't seem to have any trouble getting people inside. Personally I think that's because they open all the front doors and badges aren't checked until you're in the lobby. Comic-Con knows how to do it, but Lucas turned them down because they wanted to have full control. Oh well.