Showed up at the TRU about 10 pm w/ my 71-year-old mother. We were the 4th and 5th in line, the folks in front telling us they’d shown up about 9:15 and had already scoped out the inside of the place to see how the layout was going to go. My fellow line mates were quite pleasant, as I always find at every SW fan event I attend. We all chatted, speculated (though we tried to keep it a movie spoiler free zone), laughed, etc. I had called ahead to hear what size crowds they expected, and they planned on 100. There were approximately 50-60 folks when they opened the doors at midnight. Because the crowd was so small, there was no mad dash, and people remained quite civil, which was nice. All the items were in one half aisle, which struck me as odd, but what can you do? What really took me aback, however, was the overall lack of product. They had nearly as much existing SW toys on the shelves as new stuff, and the new stuff they had wasn’t nearly as much as I had seen online.
On a whim, we then went to Wal-Mart, where they had a few different items, and I met a fellow SW blogger (guy who runs Star Wars Post), who was incredibly nice and even gave my mom a Kylo Ren black-series that was the last one. He said he wasn’t a collector, and it would make his night to give it to someone else. Ma even gave him a kiss on the cheek.
We literally were the last people in Target that didn’t work there, showing up about 1:30 a.m. Naturally, they had additional stuff we hadn’t seen. What we hadn’t planned on was our credit cards getting rejected because the credit card company saw these huge purchases at multiple stores in the middle of the night. Good thing we had back-ups.
All in all, I had a great time bonding w/ Ma, but I have to admit, I was kind of let-down by the Mouse’s efforts. Nobody invited the 501st or Rebel Legion, there was no “event.” It was just a bunch of hardcore fans who would have bought all that stuff anyway, and once i’m caught back up on sleep, I’m probably going to be a tad saltier when i fully realize I could have gotten everything but the posters and Wal-Mart trading card at any other time.
I guess it just goes to show, once you strip away the crass merchandising aspect, the fans really are great people regardless of what we’re asked to do and arguably are the best part of the entire experience. And that’s why I love being part of this community.
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