- No !!!! Say it ain't so !!! A SIGN !!!! WE HAVE A SIGN and DOUBLE SIDED. It may sound weird to you guys and girls why I would be so excited for this, but in my FAN GEEK side of my brain, to have a sign made and put up at your booth is just SOOO GEEKY AMAZINGNESS 🙂 I have to thank Rich at ReedPop for this super generous act. You see, many conventions we never had signs, so to have this was ultra special. Not since CIV and seeing my first ever EWOK sign, have I smiled this much arriving at the booth.
- A close up of our booths Diorama Builders sign. Very sweet, again Rich !!! THANK YOU SO SO MUCH, you gave me the BIGGEST SMILE today.
- OK, Time for our FIRST Core Crew photo, Missing was Jamie SILLOF Folis who was arriving later tonight. You can see in my hand, I am holding my phone in my hand as I was doing a LIVE FACEBOOK DIARY at the time I was called over, so If you watch that ARCHIVE on my Youtube Channel, or on the sites Celebration IX link, you can see how this pic was taken plus everything that happened right after this moment for a nice 15 minute visit/preview of our booth.
- OK playtime over, time to go to John's truck and unload the 1rst trip of the art supplies we sent to him.
- To think all of this PLUS another full truckload to be delivered tomorrow was all in John's garage for the past 6 weeks.
- And STILL HE SMILES - LOL. I already said it, but tahnk you again SO MUCH for stepping up and offering to be so generous to me. It helps that he lives in Chicago and that I have known him now since 2007, when he first came to build with his son at our Ewok ENDOR LANDSCAPING Diorama Builders workshop.
- Not only does John drive all this stuff for us from his house but has a DOLLY for us to use, so we only have to do 3 trips and not lug 20 back and forths and spend the rest of the day full of sweat like I ran the marathon.
- I also have to say and give a SHOUT to Brent and Alissa and Mark to arrive the tuesday with me to help do all this crappy lugging around that every past convention I had maybe 1 person helping me requiring a LOT of trips.
- OK, boxes delivered to the booth, Alissa starts to do inventory and sort out materials to start prepping the war room.
- As I was taking this photo on the side of the booth where the fans would be building, I noticed just how CLOSE the FFG booths were to ours which was really nice so we could send people back and forth. Many fans told us that after painting the figures, they actually went to FFG to purchase the games and figures. Nice.
- Mark the master sign maker starts to glue and cut the artwork I printed back home to make the table signs that help the fans figure out what is going on in the booth. Chris and his daughter Alyssa in the back. Amazing seeing them grow up at our booth since 2005, now diorama family too.
- Close up of Mark doing what he has been doing to help me since 2007. After the tedious posters, he can have more fun and help build the AT-ACT prototype and instructions.
- Another view of my banner, Can you tell it makes me smile 🙂
- On the other side of the war room, is the Diorama Display area. We have 2 days to use this space to build the tower before the remaining tables fill in this space on the Friday night.
- A wider view just shows you how HUGE the area is, a whopping 30 feet x 36 feet !
- WOW, all I had to do is TURN MY HEAD LEFT from the Tank and VOILA !!! There we are RIGHT DANG smack in the middle of the MAIN ENTRANCE, this is SOOOO amazing, especially since last show, we were next to doors and said the same thing only to discover it wasn't the entrance but EXITS LOL.
- Day , well NIGHT now really 🙂 close to 10 pm, the war room is pretty much organized until tomorrow's supplies arrive for the DAY 2 set up, the LAST day BEFORE the fans arrive. I think we deserve some dinner, let's call it a night... DAY 1 SET UP - CHECK !!!

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Did you attend this Star Wars Celebration ? If you took photos and would like to have them included in this gallery, please email me DIORAMAWORKSHOP.COM@GMAIL.COM … If you have a facebook account, why not join the Official Diorama Builders Fan Club today, simply click the logo link below.
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Catch up with fellow visitors and exchange stories, read cool interviews with the crew, exchange photos, fun surprises and grab some FAN ONLY merchandise next year at actual future conventions ?
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