Dreams Come True: Hoopla Hyperspace Hoopla

Hello!

Let's jump right into this.

Star Wars Weekends for 2012 is officially OVER!

So after 4 weeks of having to get up at 5am, to catch a 5:45am bus, to arrive at work just after 6 which is when the crazy Star Wars fans begun to arrive it is finally over, and what an experience it was.

From the stampede or the running of the bulls to get to us at 7:30am to sign children up at EPIC, to watching a show every 30 minutes, seeing Ventress for the first time, to cancelling shows due to weather and having meet and greets with 30 children and their parents, to sharing our sign in space with celebrities from the movies, to watch the 501st Legion parade, to rolling our stanchions up for the Pixar Parade to just set them back up again, to watching the final show and getting to roll them up and set up for the following day.

So how was it really you ask? Star Wars Weekends was something I could never have imagined in my wildest dreams. It was a rollercoaster ride of emotions from fear, to anger, to excitement, to boredom, to joy. I tried to find a definition for Star Wars Weekend but alas one hasn't been made so I will try to define it for you.

Star Wars Weekends:

A time when all the crazy fans join together at Disney's Hollywood Studios every weekend for a month. Most noted guest from every year; Lynda Skywalker.

So we really only had one big day of cancelled shows this year for Jedi Training and it was a Friday with 60% chance of rain all day. During our sign-ups this was made very clear to the guests more then a dozen times, every cast member they spoke to informed them that the shows are weather permitting. Now every Friday, Saturday and Sunday for SWW we would sign up 480 younglings with guaranteed spots in the show and would then go and sign up roughly 90-100 alternates. On this particular Friday this is how the day panned out;

9:15am

9:45am

10:15am

10:45 am

11:15am

11:45am

12:15 am

Motorcade/501st Legion

1:30pm

2:00pm

Pixar Pals Countdown to Fun

3:45pm

4:15pm

4:45pm

5:15pm

5:45pm

6:15pm

6:45pm

The Blue shows are the ones that we had that day. 13 out of 16 shows and our 2 parades were rained out. What does that mean? Not only a fair few angry guests but taking children down with their parents for a meet and greet with Darth Vader and his 2 troopers up the top of Star Tours, now on a normal day it is okay but when your doing 60 kids every 30 minutes - not my definition of fun.

So aside from work did I get a chance to play and see what all the hype was about? Why yes, yes I did. I'm sure if I was an avid Star Wars fan I would've loved it, but I'm not so I didn't really do much, I met a few characters only 2 were from the light side the rest were the dark side, got a name tag in the Star Wars language and watched Hyperspace Hoopla twice.

Hyperspace Hoopla is a dance-off that happens between the "Good Guys" and the "Bad Guys" and it was a lot of fun to watch, however if you were a big Star Wars fan you may not enjoy it, as it is out of character for everyone, but it is a good way to end the night.

I think however this post is rather lengthy so I will leave you now with minimal text and some photo and videos.

Meet and Greets