D23 Expo 2015 - Who's in? Roll call!

[theluckyrabbit]

I can understand the sentiment of moving to Orlando since they would have much more space, but would that really make a difference?..

D23 has stated many times that there is no plan to move Expo to Orlando. It would be too expensive. Tickets are expensive enough as it is, so I don't want to think about how much more they would be if the difference trickled down to the attendees. Alternating Destination D was D23's answer to the question about moving Expo.

 

[bfost87]

I also tried to get StorePasses, but by the time I got to them (9:30am!!) they were already gone. Kevin from the Orlando Podcast Team was nice enough to give me two StorePasses for the DreamStore, and that is the only store I went in, wasn't willing to wait in those other lines.

If the Expo comes back in 2017 (I'm sure it will, but nothing was announced) I will be going for all three days and getting there a day earlier and leaving a day later. This year nearly killed me, I was up at 6am on Friday for work, left work at 4pm, drove the 3 hours down to Seattle for my flight, landed at 130am, drove around for awhile and got some breakfast, then headed to the hotel to park my rental, walked up to the Expo for 6:30am, got my tickets at Will Call, attended the Expo until 5pm, then in Disneyland until 11:30pm, and finally in bed by 2am, slept until 8am, attended the Expo all day, went straight to LAX after we left at 6pm, flights were delayed, landed in Seattle at 2:15am, drove 3 hours North to get home, in the door and in bed by 5am, alarm went off at 7am for work lol. From Friday 6am to Monday 11pm, I had 8 hours of sleep, but it was FUN! lol. I would think about getting the Sorcerer Passes next time, if I can stomach the money and they aren't sold out. But definitely I'll be getting a gold membership (they gave me gold by accident this year), after seeing what everyone in general went through trying to get in.

 

[Mr. Bastos]

D23 has stated many times that there is no plan to move Expo to Orlando. It would be too expensive. Tickets are expensive enough as it is, so I don't want to think about how much more they would be if the difference trickled down to the attendees. Alternating Destination D was D23's answer to the question about moving Expo.

Yeah, I'm not saying it should move to Orlando, in fact I'd rather it stay in Anaheim. I just saw a few people suggest it as a way to "fix" D23. My post was more about how moving it to Orlando, may seem like a nice idea, but in reality the issue isn't size, it's organization.

 

[ashley0139]

I also tried to get StorePasses, but by the time I got to them (9:30am!!) they were already gone. Kevin from the Orlando Podcast Team was nice enough to give me two StorePasses for the DreamStore, and that is the only store I went in, wasn't willing to wait in those other lines.

If the Expo comes back in 2017 (I'm sure it will, but nothing was announced) I will be going for all three days and getting there a day earlier and leaving a day later. This year nearly killed me, I was up at 6am on Friday for work, left work at 4pm, drove the 3 hours down to Seattle for my flight, landed at 130am, drove around for awhile and got some breakfast, then headed to the hotel to park my rental, walked up to the Expo for 6:30am, got my tickets at Will Call, attended the Expo until 5pm, then in Disneyland until 11:30pm, and finally in bed by 2am, slept until 8am, attended the Expo all day, went straight to LAX after we left at 6pm, flights were delayed, landed in Seattle at 2:15am, drove 3 hours North to get home, in the door and in bed by 5am, alarm went off at 7am for work lol. From Friday 6am to Monday 11pm, I had 8 hours of sleep, but it was FUN! lol. I would think about getting the Sorcerer Passes next time, if I can stomach the money and they aren't sold out. But definitely I'll be getting a gold membership (they gave me gold by accident this year), after seeing what everyone in general went through trying to get in.

Holy cow! That's insane!

 

[Mr. Bastos]

I also tried to get StorePasses, but by the time I got to them (9:30am!!) they were already gone. Kevin from the Orlando Podcast Team was nice enough to give me two StorePasses for the DreamStore, and that is the only store I went in, wasn't willing to wait in those other lines.

If the Expo comes back in 2017 (I'm sure it will, but nothing was announced) I will be going for all three days and getting there a day earlier and leaving a day later. This year nearly killed me, I was up at 6am on Friday for work, left work at 4pm, drove the 3 hours down to Seattle for my flight, landed at 130am, drove around for awhile and got some breakfast, then headed to the hotel to park my rental, walked up to the Expo for 6:30am, got my tickets at Will Call, attended the Expo until 5pm, then in Disneyland until 11:30pm, and finally in bed by 2am, slept until 8am, attended the Expo all day, went straight to LAX after we left at 6pm, flights were delayed, landed in Seattle at 2:15am, drove 3 hours North to get home, in the door and in bed by 5am, alarm went off at 7am for work lol. From Friday 6am to Monday 11pm, I had 8 hours of sleep, but it was FUN! lol. I would think about getting the Sorcerer Passes next time, if I can stomach the money and they aren't sold out. But definitely I'll be getting a gold membership (they gave me gold by accident this year), after seeing what everyone in general went through trying to get in.

I feel your pain. I was up at 5 for work on Friday, got off around 5:30 and immediately drove down to the expo from the bay area. Didn't get any sleep until late Saturday afternoon when we left the expo to rest before dinner. Next time, I definitely want to get there a day early, and leave a day or two after so I can enjoy the park while I'm there.

 

[rastuso]

Yeah, I'm not saying it should move to Orlando, in fact I'd rather it stay in Anaheim. I just saw a few people suggest it as a way to "fix" D23. My post was more about how moving it to Orlando, may seem like a nice idea, but in reality the issue isn't size, it's organization.

It seems D23 simply has the same problem as all things Disney. Too many people, and they would rather soak them for more money than provide more to them. And they try to limit how many VIP tickets they sell to not make people think they are money grubbing.

Heck, they could have sold a thousand $500 tickets that were first access to the panels, and they would have sold instantly. But, SDCC doesn't do it either, I guess.

I'm shocked to hear there was no shuttle to the hotels. That was a VERY nice thing in 13, saving about a mile of walking. And really, INMH, that shows what is wrong with D23. An absolutely lack of planning, and a bunch of idiots in charge. If you have someone paying $300 a night in your hotels, you make sure they have a special shuttle, since you already have dozens of vehicles, all you do is change what the marquee shows, and you MAKE PEOPLE HAPPY.

I haven't seen much of the displays. Was there much besides the Avatar model, and some signs and art from Shanghai, that weren't really new?

In retrospect, you could have had a good time there, knowing now how crowds were, when was best time to show up. This year, if you showed up at the big morning panel lines at about 6, you cold see them, and get on the expo floor almost as fast as someone who just showed up to get in the expo at about 8. I doubt anyone would have ever planned that way to attend. It seems the lineups for the big shows weren't crazy at all. AND the number of major celebrities this year blew away the last one.



Jason

 

[Kim3]

Solutions, so many solutions:

- Replace Jesus nuts with costumed Disney characters
- Replace blaring boombox scripture sermons with Disney music

But Markolodeon, if they eliminate this, who will buy my newly created "I waited in the Gold Line for THREE hours and the only event left open was to join a cult" t-shirts?

was at the convention center by 9:15. Found someone knowledgeable and was told to go inside to get my one day will call ticket. As a Gold Member, I was under the impression we were to be let in prior to 10:00 a.m. which it still was....not the case and had to go back outside and stand in a make shift line which was merging with another line and finally reentered the convention center by 10:00 a.m.

Got in line for GA this morning at 849, through the door at 1019

Did they change line management for Saturday? I'm really surprised to hear you both got in line so late and were through the doors so quickly. That is pretty much the exact opposite of Friday's debacle.

And while we are on the topic of lines, is it true they had separate lines for the "first of the day" presentations on Stage 23/28? We wanted into the Muppets panel did NOT see any signs outside the convention center directing us to another line. I did see the Hall 23 signs. On Saturday, two people told me that they had the Muppets panel attendees lining up inside in the Hall 23 overflow queue area so they could process those attendees quickly.

My take on the Expo is that Disney gets into different businesses to do things differently than the status quo and redefine guest service. So, why people say, "It's a Con. You should expect this" is beyond me. This is especially irking knowing that GenCon in Indy sees 60K plus in attendees each year and has none of these problems AND doesn't have ONE corporation that owns all the various business units that are attending.

A few SIMPLE fixes:

Line Management for Entrance- Color code the lines. Y'know that tape they used in place of rope? Use different colors for different queues and put TAPE arrows in that color down on the sidewalk directing people to the right line. Have someone with signs at the end of each line with placards that say "End of Line Here." Use multiple sets of doors to process people.

Panels- Do them twice. Yes, some of the excitement is being the first to hear the news, but I would have been happy to stare at Chris Evans later in the day since the first panel filled up at 5 am. Hall D23 was under-utilized and they could have held 5 events in there each day. I would love advance registration for the panels, but I don't think Disney would go down that path.

Special Stores - Find a way to keep them open longer. Yes, you can shut down the show floor at 7 pm, but keep the stores open until 9 pm. Open them at 7 am.


Overall, I don't plan on going to D23 Expo again unless there are significant changes and/or I can get a Sorcerer's ticket. I probably will not renew my membership when it expires.

Kim

 

[Kim3]

I also tried to get StorePasses, but by the time I got to them (9:30am!!) they were already gone. Kevin from the Orlando Podcast Team was nice enough to give me two StorePasses for the DreamStore, and that is the only store I went in, wasn't willing to wait in those other lines.

I thought store pass distribution wasn't supposed to start until 10:00 am:

1. Starting at 10 a.m., and while D23 EXPO StorePass tickets last, visit the StorePass desk located adjacent to the StagePass distribution area in Hall A.
2. Choose one of the 30 minute shopping experience timeslots, held from 12 p.m. – 5 p.m.
   

 

[Markolodeon]

But Markolodeon, if they eliminate this, who will buy my newly created "I waited in the Gold Line for THREE hours and the only event left open was to join a cult" t-shirts?

LOL! Where do I place my order?!

 

[Markolodeon]

There was a silver lining to our day. A security guy at the archives queue (which had just closed) asked us in a very gruff demeanor "can I help you?" We tried to joke with him and replied in a light hearted manner "we're beyond help, couldn't get into anything today." Then as we walked away he came back up to us and asked us if we wanted to get into the archives exhibit to which we enthusiastically replied "yes!"

In the same super serious tone he said "follow me" and we half thought we were being taken in for interrogation lol but then he led us up to the side entrance and told us to work our way back up to the front to go through the whole exhibit.

Wow did that one act of kindness make our day! We would love to see an expo where half the expo floor was dedicated to history. Lots of room available by getting rid of the flea market stuff which just seemed weird and tacky.

 

[Halloweenqueen]

To answer an earlier question. We waited 90 minutes to get a Stagepass for OUAT at 11:00. Got into the line at 4:30. Decent seats.

They need to limit tickets. Organize the lines and train! We knew where we were heading at 3:30 am, thanks to watching Twitter, etc. A convention worker stopped us to ask where we were going. I answered Live Action, in the hall. He told me I was going the wrong way and I was heading to see Marvel. I told him Marvel was part of Live Action, but he kept insisting I was wrong. I finally told him we were just going to look around and he finally let us head to the Hall. He cost us precious minutes. Very annoying when the staff doesn't even know the panel.

 

[Kathymford]

I was talking to one of the Expo CMs and part of the problem with the event being every 2 years is almost everyone is new. So any lessons learned by these CMs is for nothing ...

I expect lines at conventions. I've been going to SDCC for years. But the one that gets me the most is the line to get in the front door. 2 doors? Seriously? For 50k people! C'mon Disney. There was no reason for it.

 

[theluckyrabbit]

Yeah, I'm not saying it should move to Orlando, in fact I'd rather it stay in Anaheim. I just saw a few people suggest it as a way to "fix" D23...

Yes, totally got that. I should have made it more clear that I was referencing the people who think that moving the event to Orlando would fix the organization problems. The question of moving the event has been around since 2009, so D23 has answered it many times. Like you said, if the organization problems don't get addressed, then location is a moot point. It will just be the same, more expensive chaos somewhere else.

Regarding the problems people had with Storepass, we go to the Stagepass line each day before 9:30am and the Storepass line was already closed by that time (only 300 given out each day). I don't know how quickly the line filled, but we never did get a Storepass (and actually found that we didn't need one). The Dream Store line was always moving quickly and the check out process was a breeze. We waited until late on Friday to get in line for the Disney Store and got in after about 30 minutes. The wait would have been shorter, but the registers kept losing power, so we had to wait until that problem was fixed. We tried MOG, but the line was so long that we decided to wait until the next D23 shopping day so others who don't live local could have their chance to shop.

 

[keahgirl8]

Yes, totally got that. I should have made it more clear that I was referencing the people who think that moving the event to Orlando would fix the organization problems. The question of moving the event has been around since 2009, so D23 has answered it many times. Like you said, if the organization problems don't get addressed, then location is a moot point. It will just be the same, more expensive chaos somewhere else.

Regarding the problems people had with Storepass, we go to the Stagepass line each day before 9:30am and the Storepass line was already closed by that time (only 300 given out each day). I don't know how quickly the line filled, but we never did get a Storepass (and actually found that we didn't need one). The Dream Store line was always moving quickly and the check out process was a breeze. We waited until late on Friday to get in line for the Disney Store and got in after about 30 minutes. The wait would have been shorter, but the registers kept losing power, so we had to wait until that problem was fixed. We tried MOG, but the line was so long that we decided to wait until the next D23 shopping day so others who don't live local could have their chance to shop.

I got a Storepass on Friday. There wasn't really a panel I wanted to see, so I went there first. I think I got in about 9:20 or so and went straight there. MoG was gone, but the other 2 were still available. Then on Saturday, my panel wasn't until evening, so I went straight to MoG and waited maybe 30 minutes. I got into the show floor around 9:10 that day. It would have been a longer wait if I'd wanted pins, but they said it would only add 20 min or so.

 

[theluckyrabbit]

We went straight to the Storepass line on Saturday, got there before 9:30am, and there were CMs who had roped off the end of the line and were not letting anyone else get in. So sometime around 9:20ish, the line closed. On Sunday morning, we went straight to MOG and the line was already about 1.5 hours long. This was the only store line that required a ticket for entry -- not for entry to the store, but for entry to the line. None of the CMs knew why.

 

[keahgirl8]

We went straight to the Storepass line on Saturday, got there before 9:30am, and there were CMs who had roped off the end of the line and were not letting anyone else get in. So sometime around 9:20ish, the line closed. On Sunday morning, we went straight to MOG and the line was already about 1.5 hours long. This was the only store line that required a ticket for entry -- not for entry to the store, but for entry to the line. None of the CMs knew why.

What? I didn't have a ticket for the line.

 

[ashley0139]

Anyone planning on writing a trip report? I'd love to see what others experienced in their days there.

 

[theluckyrabbit]

What? I didn't have a ticket for the line.

It was really weird. CMs would not let anyone without a ticket into the line. They had no explanation why. This was the only store that had this requirement and apparently only on Sunday.

 

[keahgirl8]

It was really weird. CMs would not let anyone without a ticket into the line. They had no explanation why. This was the only store that had this requirement and apparently only on Sunday.

That's so weird! I don't understand why either!

 

[ImDMous]

We got into Mickey's of Glendale and the Dreamstore on Friday without a shopping pass. I think we waited between half an hour to an hour for each of them. It was no big deal really, the lines were about half of the taped out length and were moving the whole time. Never made it to the Disney Store, but that was the lowest on my priority list.

We never made it to the Archives either, that line was huge on Sunday. Seems like everyone saved it for last. Just so much stuff to see...