We were in that too but kind of wishing we had done Hercules instead. Oh well. Now in line for voices of Disney parks and then going to head to Alan menken around 3:30.
Voices was fantastic! I decided to go at the last minute, and was so glad I did.
For anyone wondering about the second Menken, it's still pretty empty in here. Gold for section b is filled but everything else is empty.
Also I ended up skipping voices of Disney parks to see Susan Egan at center stage. It was really short but so so awesome to hear her sing belle live.
I'm section c gold line if anyone ends up in this area. My friend is going to
Disneyland so I am alone for this one.
Edit: they just reopened b gold section.
I think I sat next to your friend! Did you decide to leave after they already loaded the room? I saw an empty seat on the end and asked if someone was sitting there. She said I had perfect timing because her friend had just gotten up 30 seconds before to see Susan Egan! I bet that was you!
We got to shop Thursday at MOG (the regular store not pin store), Dream Store, and
Disney Store. For phased releases they would not sell early so like for Oswald stuff I had to go back Saturday and rescue rangers on sunday. They did make sure the Disney store line had all Sorcerers at the front until the last sorcer in the original line was in since we were let on the floor 15 minutes before everyone else. I know Sorcerers who still waited 2+ hours for Duck Tales jump because they did not make CMs and vendors get out of line except Saturday when Michael the head of
D23 saw what was going on (again CMs and vendors). Same for MOG pin shop 6+ hour lines there.
It did help don't get me wrong but some people think it is a Front of the Line for all experiences and it isn't. Thursday the show floor easn't even done so we only got to see pirates archive, marvel, and disney volunteers while media was at SW pavilion.
I started a trip report so once I get home I will finish that and do a full wrap up review.
I know even some sorcerers over nighted which was just crazy to me. I showed up at 6 then 7 the 8 because the last day I realized there was no reason. Sure had I showed up at 6 maybe I wouldn't have waited an hor for Duck Tales but part of the experience was being able to sleep in.
That's the main reason I'd want to be a Sorcerer. All of the sleep!
On the first day, I got stage passes but skipped those for Saturday & Sunday once I saw how much bigger those rooms were this time. I also decided I would be happy to be ‘in the room where it happens’ (channeling my inner Hamilton – smile!), rather than being in the front of the room. Taking this approach allowed me to get to more panels, because I was not waiting in another long line to get stage pass or feeling I had to be in the stand-by line so early. I got into each panel I wanted each day, also allowed for show floor time, and never waited more than 30 min or so for most panels. I also saw how crazy it was Friday for appearances and signings at the Disney/Pixar Animation Studios pavilion, so ended up skipping everything there because it was a free-for-all & would have taken a lot of time.
I really wanted to do a couple of the signings, but they seemed so stress-inducing, I didn't even bother to try.
Based on helpful comments from others here, I decided to skip the Parks panel, which had been on my list until probably Friday. I decided I could not give up that much time on Saturday. As a result, I ended up catching five other panels on Saturday and enjoyed each of them very much, plus felt I had a more productive day. Each person has to decide what is most important to see/do while there, & for me I’d rather see more of the less higher profile panels that are not shared in detail afterward, & get more insider information. Some of those other panels offered surprises – ie after one, the D23 staff was outside with free magnets for everyone. In the Archives stage, they raffled off fun stuff at the end of each session which was an unexpected surprise. The Oswald panel also had giveaways.
That's been my strategy since my first Expo. I did all of the major panels except Parks that year. It was great, but I didn't do much other than wait in line. I decided I'd rather see smaller panels after that, and I've had some once in a lifetime experiences because of it.
Store passes were better this year – they had more of them, and folks were able to get store passes later into the day where last time those were pretty much gone within an hour. I got one both Friday for a signing in the Dream Store and Saturday. Store passes save a ton of time not waiting in long lines there. Another learning from past expos is, if you want to get something signed, buy it on Friday even if the signing is not until Saturday or Sunday. I’d missed out on past Expos by not realizing that, especially with early release books where supply will be limited. I got the Oswald book on Friday to get it signed on Sunday; it was sold out by Sunday & several folks missed out.
I'm glad to hear that. I honestly didn't even try for Storepasses this time. I just kept an eye on the store lines and hopped in when they looked shorter. I didn't really have a high priority panel on Friday, so I managed to get all of my shopping done that day. A first for me! I'm usually rushing around Sunday afternoon trying to get to 1 or 2 stores I've missed.
I honestly don’t know if I will try for Sorcerer next time. Wilkeliza’s comments about both what that provides & what it does not provide are very helpful – thanks for sharing! I’m not that into the Disney Store shopping & don’t need to be in the front row/section of the panel rooms. While it would save me from having to get to Hall E so early each morning (I was arriving between 4:30 & 5:00 each morning because I’d rather wait before show floor opened than be late getting on the show floor) & it would get me into the Animation panel without the long lines/waits, I’ll have to think about if that perk & one panel is worth the money compared to everything else I was able to do with good prior planning.
So you could have signed up for the live action panel and legit showed up 20 minutes before it started to sit in the front?
That sounds like a dream. Maybe someday I can scrape together the cash to do that.
Arrival time: 5:15 am
I had been pretty sure that we'd be inside if we arrived before 6 am. However, this was not the case. We were in the second section (each section had a taped off walkway left) so we were pretty close to the doors. We spoke with some people in line with us in the MOG line later that morning and they had arrived at 5 and been allowed inside to wait downstairs. So we must have just missed the cut off.
I didn't expect Friday to be as crowded as it was for the show floor line. I got there a little after 6, so I knew I probably couldn't be inside, but I didn't expect to be quite as far back as i was. I got there an hour earlier the remaining days and it made a huge difference. I really enjoyed lying down on carpet in air conditioning, watching my Kindle!
At that time of day there was no wait for security. As everyone knows now, they did not care about bringing outside food in. We saw people with pizza boxes even.
This seemed to be luck of the draw. I saw plenty of people walking in with Starbucks, or other outside food, but then I also saw people told they couldn't bring in a bag of McDonald's.
It took us about 10 minutes of trying to figure out where they were, but we finally met up. At this point we had a bad experience. The line up for Animation was downstairs but there was a long line of people upstairs who were waiting for the escalator. It took us forever to find the back of the line and at one point I was trying to ask a volunteer where the back of the line was and he just turned away and pretended not to hear me. It was a cluster. I think we were lining up around 11:30 maybe, I don't know the exact time.
We were just about to get to the point to head down the escalator and the Legends panel must have let out. There was a big surge where those people melded with our line (our line was not pleased but what could you do about it?).
I think by now everyone has heard about the giant mess with the Animation panel line. I'm afraid we might have been a part of the surge that ended up in front of other people, but we had no idea at the time and were just following the crowd. Which was pretty dangerous by the way, everyone was shoving and it was a bit scary. You just had to go where the crowd went.
We settled down to wait for Animation. We had fun waiting in a group. There was a guy who was giving us announcements and letting us know we'd have to put our phones in bags. Now, we know after the fact that lots of people who had been waiting didn't get into the panel. This guy kept announcing there was plenty of space in line and inviting more people to join sections.
The lines finally started to move in and we were able to get a spot in the back of the stage right section. Once again, this was very disorganized. When we arrived at the top of the escalator there was a whole mass of people hovering at the door waiting to get in.
Now...after the fact we heard all the bad stories about the Animation panel line and how some people who had been waiting for hours got shuffled around and never got in. If those people were lucky enough to stick around after they announced the panel was full, they were given a wristband for the parks and resorts or live action panel. Apparently, if you stuck around even longer you were further compensated by a park ticket. I kind of have a problem with this. Now, some people had been waiting for hours and got screwed out of their spot by poor line management, however, some people walked up 20 minutes before the panel started because the guy was announcing plenty of room. It was not fair that those people got the perks. However, I understand there would have been no way to weed out the people who rightfully deserved the compensation and those who didn't.
We did see a few people bragging on twitter later that their wrist bands were not removed for the live action panel and they used it for both live action and parks and resorts.
Anyway...I think the Animation panel was one of my favorite moments of the convention.
Really, my top want from the panel was just to see John Lasseter with my own eyes, so of course that happened. He started off with a tshirt shoot. I was too short to see anything, but next thing I know everyone in my section is going crazy and then my boyfriend hands me a tshirt. He caught one! I think they only shot off less than 10. I was so excited. I dunno if all the sizes were random but ours ended up being a small and it fits me.
So already the panel was starting off with a bang.
They started with the trailer about planes in space. The animation was breath taking. It was just a really short teaser trailer but right at the end they showed that the plan had eyes like the cars do in Cars. So really, I don't know anything about that except it is about planes that go up into space and they will most likely talk and act like the cars in Cars.
Then Kristen Bell came out to talk about Frozen 2. They revealed that Frozen 2 will not be the name and then cycled through a bunch of really funny titles like Thawed. Kristen Bell was going to talk about the new Olaf Christmas short but the audio went on the fritz so...Josh Gad just came out to sign it live! One of the best parts. Gad then went on to keep ribbing Bell about how the short was named Olaf's short, not Anna's and how her name kind of confused him because her last name is Bell yet she hadn't been in the live action Beauty and the Beast like he had. It was all hilarious.
They brought out Sarah Silverman to talk about Wreck it Ralph 2. We got to watch the infamous Disney princess clip, which I thought was hilarious. The whole room was roaring.
After the clip they announced that every princess had come back to reprise their roles (they didn't mention it but I'm assuming the deceased princesses' voices were replaced). They started off by announcing Ming Na Wen was back as Mulan, and Idina Menzel back as Elsa. Then they announced Kristen Bell back as Anna (since we had already seen her there). But then she came back out and announced I think Jodie Benson back as Ariel, so she came out, and it just went on and on like that until we had 10+ princesses out on stage. The crowd was going insane.
Then they brought out the director to announce a new original Pixar movie which would be a suburban fantasy type movie. I heard this concept get trashed a lot on the internet by people who weren't there, but I think it sounds great. It is based off the experience of the director and his brother, their father died when they were very young so they never knew him. The movie follows along with this idea, it is 2 brothers who try to find a way to speak with their dad. Except, the world they come in was one that used to know magic. However, magic was hard so technology started to evolve so the people in the land (trolls, elves, goblins, fantasy type creatures) have the same tech we do nowadays and they forgot about magic. It looks great, they showed some funny concept art where unicorns are rodents like rats and are everywhere and eat out of garbage cans. I'm excited about this one.
They ended with showing an extended clip of Coco. I am really excited about this movie. It looks gorgeous and emotionally charged as usual with Pixar original movies.
After it was over they brought out the little boy who voices Miguel (the lead) and he sang a bit of a song of his relative's. Then Benjamin Bratt, the voice of the great grandfather, came out and continued the song then dancers came down all the aisles and it was a huge production with a confetti release at the end. It was a great finale.
There was no mention of the Jack and the Giant Beanstalk movie, so I wonder if that movie is having issues.
That sounds like an amazing panel, but what a nightmare.
Yeah, I stopped by the booth just to browse and they had a sign saying the Auli'i signing was sold out on Friday. There were several people that were upset because they were told they could not get wristbands until Saturday. I didn't even bother with any signings. Seemed like way more trouble than they were worth.
Another example of them mishandling signings, and seeming to be unprepared for people to be that excited about whoever was in the signing.
I was going to post this on my Saturday write up, but the Auli'i signing was not worth the trouble and was the biggest let down anyway.
Remember how I said we'd been upsold the litho because they said we could get two things signed?
Well, we get in line for her and they start saying we can only have one item signed because they sold a bunch of stand by wristbands and they needed to push them through.
Then we get up to her, my boyfriend has the phone out ready for a picture, the woman shouts 'no pictures!' even though we'd seen others taking pictures early on in the half hour we were in line. I tried to say I really enjoyed her work and the woman working the booth literally pushed me away and shoved my record at me so hard I got a paper cut.
That's nice that they want to shove through as many stand by as they can, but when they upsell you items you don't even want and then take away the fact that you can get them signed...and basically ruin the meet and greet by not letting you even say hello the whole thing just sucks.
Probably the worst part of the expo. So maybe you guys who missed the bands lucked out. I mean, yeah, I stood in front of her for maybe 5 seconds but I didn't even get to say a word.
Very disappointing. I don't pay for celebrities autographs to have the autograph, if I just solely wanted that I could purchase it from an autograph vendor.
I mostly purchase autographs because I want to meet the person and have a few minutes to let them know what their work means to me. So for me, paying for her autograph was a waste of money.
That's a shame. What a mess! I was really wanting to do this one, because I love Moana and was buying the lithograph anyway, but after I heard how it went, I was glad the wristbands were gone by the time I got there.
Yeah they were lovely to meet and both are from the Tangled series as well.
Am I wrong in thinking that they REALLY need to re-think the Marvel booth signings? Bigger booth, more wrist bands, moving the booth away from other lineup spots to avoid bottlenecks ... something? I really thought that whole area was poorly thought out. The Marvel wrist band lines banging into the lines for the Gold member gift distribution and the Stage Pass queues made that whole sector a mess that could have been avoiding with a more thoughtful layout.
Totally agree! Again, did they not think this would be popular? I just don't get it.
And look ... we had a great time. I feel like this board did a great service by helping to set expectations correctly in place, but even left to my own devices I feel like we'd have had fun. We wanted to do at least one D23 and now that we have I'm not sure I've got any burning desire to go back for a couple of cycles. It's just a LOT of work, both mental a physical. We're big fans of quality cosplay though, and I'm not sure anything will ever top the Mousequerade on Friday. That was an epic cosplay contest.
I think I'm going to have to check out the Mousequerade next time! I've heard lots of good things.
I never experienced the Marvel lines because i knew as soon as I heard there were 100 wrist bands that we wouldn't get close to it.
If we want to talk more line management what about the Disney Animation and Pixar booth signings??
Those were a giant mess. The first day they were giving out signing wrist bands about a half hour before the start. Then Saturday and Sunday they just want to 'we'll give them our randomly to whoever we feel like' because hundreds of people were milling around the booth for hours waiting to meet people like Brad Bird and they wouldn't set a time to give out the bands. Really guys?? You didn't know a Brad Bird signing would be super popular? And your fix for that situation was to give no one any info so people wasted hours hanging out at the booth then never got a wrist band?
That was poorly organized.
I know early morning wrist bands aren't always the most fair, but I feel they needed a different color band for each signing of the day, then everyone can get one and only one first thing in the morning. At least that way people wouldn't waste hours hanging around blocking walkways and never get close to a band.
Another thing I wanted to do, but didn't try for. I really wanted to do the Moana directors' signing, but by then I knew what a mess it was, so I didn't really try.
Were you there when that happened? I would have freaked out completely. (Silently, I hope!)
I will agree, that they made a lot of improvements that did help. They just still have a lot to figure out. Maybe by the 10th anniversary they'll figure it out.
So the more I'm thinking about it the more I feel Live Action was the worst panel I saw.
I'm not sure if it had to do with the 2 am wake up, or almost not getting into the panel.
I also really had my heart set on seeing Lin Manuel Miranda live and obviously he did not show.
Was anyone else just not that impressed by it?
Sure, there were lots of really famous stars that showed up. Also, the Animation panel is probably at the top of my list next to a Kiss Goodnight panel (who wouldn't have Richard Sherman playing Feed the Birds in the top spot?)
So I'm not sure what it is but I just wasn't really that into Live Action.
I actually heard that from several people. They didn't seem to do as much as they did in the past for the Live Action panel. Lin Manuel Miranda was on vacation, from what I heard, so he was not expected to be there.
I think also that past Expos came after Comicon and so Disney held nothing back. Now this year Disney has tried to schedule the week before. With regard to Star Wars and especially Marvel, it felt like they were holding back.
Agreed. The timing really caused them to do that this year. As a Once fan, it was noticeable too. We didn't get any footage in the panel, just a couple of photos. Then yesterday at the SDCC Once panel, they showed the trailer for season 7. That's just one example that I personally witnessed. (We did get to see Colin O'Donoghue sing though! Take that, SDCC!)[/user][/user]
I am also curious if anyone in here decides to write one, post a link and I'll definitely follow along.
