Star Wars: 10 Things I Learnt At My First Celebration

4. There's Endless Queues (But For The Oddest Things)

If you're going to any convention, you better get ready to queue. It was a running joke on the #SWCE Twitter, especially as this event was in England. Thing is, in many cases it was rather unnecessary (and I'm not just talking from the occasional press perk, like skipping everyone to try our the new Battlefront).

To get into panels on the main stage you needed a wristband, which were available every morning from 6am. As a result, many fans would start queuing at the night before (I saw people sitting in line at 9pm Thursday ahead of Friday's Rogue One) to ensure they got tickets. And yet it was perfectly easy to turn up at 7-ish after a good night's sleep in your own bed (or a hotel's - I live near the ExCel centre) and get into everything you wanted.

Then you have the queues to actually get into the event. Again, people were snaking hours before the doors opened, but as if you have a wristband you're guaranteed to get in, it seemed rather fruitless; unless you're in the first hundred or so into the 4000-person hall, you're not really going to get a better seat than waiting until the last minute and enjoying a slightly quieter convention floor.

For some people this waiting about seems to be part of the experience, but as an uncharacteristic Brit who hates queuing (even if I do prefer it to the anarchy of crowds) I was happy to wait. Although the longest queue of the whole thing wasn't even linked to Star Wars; it was in Starbucks on the first day.