At 5pm on Friday 12th July (seems like years ago), Gentle Giant stopped off in the UK, Forbidden Planet in Shaftsbury Avenue, London, to be more precise as part of their World Tour.
This was the third stop on the 2007 World Tour and you could meet the ‘maker’, president of Gentle Giant, Karl Meyer. In addition to this at each stop of the tour a different Clone Commander has been made available. In the UK this was Commander Bly. Also available in limited quantities were the Yoda and R2D2 Maquette and the Han and Luke Stormtropper BustUps! UPDATED!!! Check out some great photos from our French friends at MintInBox.net – take the link here.
The first person to join the queue did so at 07:30 on the morning of the event and he was joined by several hundred others by the time the event was due to start at 17:00 hours. The Bly busts were limited to 2 per person and the Maquette and BustUps! were 1 per person although they did allow people to rejoin the queue to pick up some multiples. As people entered they were given the opportunity to meet Karl Meyer and even get their products signed by him too. Some of the first people in were also given world tour t-shirts and had their heads scanned. One lucky person will also get their head sculpted for a one off bust.
The shop ended up closing about 30minutes after its usual closing time of 20:00 and everybody came away satisfied. Also, on display were prototypes of Admiral Ackbar bust, Red and Blue Royal Guard busts and the Jawa maquette(s). “The atmosphere was absolutely incredible and everybody got on with each other” said Danie Ware, the Press & Marketing Officer at Forbidden Planet.
None of the product sold out and a limited number of each product was also made available on the Forbidden Planet stand at Celebration Europe over the weekend.
Thanks to Gentle Giant for including the UK in their World Tour and for Forbidden Planet for hosting them. We hope to work closer together with both parties in the future and we were able to have an interesting chat with Karl… Forbidden Planet was kind enough to give us a Commander Bly bust for an upcoming competition on Jedi News – stay tuned!