For our last look back at Star Wars Celebration, I’m offering up some final thoughts and a slideshow of some of the various and sundry sights found around the Exhibitor’s Floor and elsewhere.

The Good: Celebration had an enormous amount of content available and organized it fairly well in different interest tracks: Cosplay, Crafting, Literature, etc. The mobile application they developed was actually much better than the apps I’ve used for other conventions such as San Diego Comic-Con, enabling attendees to quickly access the day’s schedule and sync it with a list of personal favorites. In general, lines appeared manageable for most of the smaller panels, and getting into the Arena presentations was at least not any more painful than you should probably expect at a big convention.

Most importantly, both the presenters and the guests seemed to be imbued with a fresh sense of enthusiasm and optimism for the franchise that only ratcheted up as the weekend progressed. Some of that surely was secondary to all the new activity brought on after the Disney purchase, but the clips and reports from the people involved with the new LucasFilm gave a sense of purpose and vision that bodes well for the upcoming films.

The Bad: While the line management got reasonably effective by the end of the weekend, the start was marked by an abundance of disorganization and shrill histrionics. Finding your way to the various locations wasn’t helped by the fact that they named all the different venues unenlightening things like “Celebration Stage”…and then didn’t put the names on the maps they uploaded to the app. Fortunately they updated the app regularly so the information was up by the second day, but it seemed as though it took about a day for enough information to disseminate through the volunteers to render them helpful.

The Ugly: Probably the worst part of the whole convention was the Celebration Show Store. The line to get in was horrific, and the line to check out was worse. When I got in line, I assumed that the line was going to move really fast, because otherwise the length of it would have made waiting in it ridiculous. Surprise! It actually took around two hours or so to get through the line to pay. By the time I got to the cashier, I could barely remember what I was there for. By Sunday, the lines had dwindled away, but so had most of the merchandise.

It seems as though it might streamline things if they limited the number of each item one person could purchase, and possibly instituted a “fastpass”-like system so that people could reserve a window of time they could enter the store. A similar fix might help with walk-throughs such as the “Force Awakens” Exhibit that had three to four hour wait times the days I checked, obligating them to cap the line around noon the last day.

Another workaround would be to purchase the VIP tickets that offer a number of perks, including reserved seating and a preview session in the store. The disadvantages, besides the increased cost, is that they are relatively limited in number and sell out almost as soon as tickets go on sale.

On the whole, however, I thought Celebration did a great job of feeding the audience’s desire for more information about the future of the Star Wars franchise, while avoiding spoilers. It introduced new players while reintroducing us to a number of old ones, and was persuasive in presenting impressive prospects to come.

Next year, Star Wars Celebration will be held July 15-17, 2016 at the Excel London Exhibition Centre. Tickets and other information are available at http://www.starwarscelebration.com/