We started planning a trip to Japan for the 2025 Star Wars Celebration when it was announced in 2023, and we bought our tickets to the event in May of 2024. We’d been anticipating, planning, and dreaming about this epic vacation for years. We took a local Japanese language course, watched movies and read books set in and about Japan, watched countless YouTube videos, and rewatched some Star Wars shows and movies in preparation. Finally, we boarded our plane early Wednesday morning on the 16th of April this year and spent hours at multiple airports and on two flights, arriving late afternoon on Thursday in Tokyo. We were finally in Japan, and within 12 hours, we would be waiting in our first second line of Celebration.

Celebration Japan 2025 decided not to mail badges ahead of time or allow anyone other than the ticket buyer to pick up the tickets. They had multiple days ahead of the event with open hours for badge pickups, and we just barely arrived within the last hour of pickups. A sweaty hot mess, wheeling two suitcases and carrying two backpacks, I made my way to check in at our walkable hotel, 7 minutes from the convention while Jon stood in line for the barely (or not at all) air-conditioned badge pickup building across the street from the convention center (Makuhari Messe).

We knew lines would be insane. We chose our top priority panel for each day and planned around that panel. Jon had managed to get into the live panel on Saturday morning for Andor, and I had managed to get into the secondary (streamed) panel location for Saturday afternoon’s Ahsoka panel and Sunday afternoon’s Visions Volume 3 panel. Jon and I had also managed to somehow get Lightning Lane reservations (skip the line) for the Celebration merch store for Friday morning (Jon) and Saturday morning (me). We had decided on two photo ops for Sunday for Manny Jacinto and Rosario Dawson. And that’s all we were able to book in advance. Everything else would be line-dependent.

There were lines for security. Lines to get into the building. Lines for merch. Lines for all the booths. Lines for the food hall. Lines for the panels. Lines to walk between buildings. A mob around the open stage. People everywhere. We lined up at 5:40AM on Friday to get into the building, which opened at 9AM. By the time we got into the building, it was around 9:15AM. We went straight to the Hot Toys booth, which already had a 90-minute line halfway through the building. Jon was keen on the exclusive Cherry Blossom Stormtrooper figure, and it was a nail-biter waiting in that line without any information on if and when they’d run out of the event exclusives. They had 5 exclusives, and the first to run out later that morning was the Anakin Darth Vader. By the time I entered the shop at 10:30AM, they still had all their exclusives, but many people who decided to arrive at convention opening time for the day were SOL for exclusive merchandise. Many booths limited merchandise purchases to 1/person but they still ran out the first day (and already multiple listings on eBay). We were able to get all the special merch we wanted without trouble (but with a lot of waiting) on Friday. One of my favorites is the tiny little LEGO brick with the Celebration logo, I got for free with my LEGO purchase (waited in line 30 minutes).

By the time I exited the Hot Toys store, the convention center was packed, and I was lugging around a lot of extra weight and very, very hungry. We spent another 30-40 minutes in the food hall line and tried out several of the food options. All of them had fun names. Some of them were nicely plated. None of them were that exciting taste-wise. We were paying for the theming. The drinks were the best – sesame shake and yuzu lemonade soda. We later tried some of the food trucks parked outside the convention hall and they were tastier.

We barely had time to drop off our merch before *trying* to get in line for our first non-reserved seating panel at the Celebration Stage – Lucasfilm Animation’s 20th Anniversary. I specify that we tried to get in line because they didn’t want us forming a line until closer to the panel start time; however, at least 25-50 people were hovering in that general area waiting for the line to start. We read that it’s best to line up as soon as the previous panel’s line gets admitted to the venue. We tried to get in line while the previous panel was ongoing (2 hours before our panel was set to start). Suddenly, people were rushing to the queue area, and we thought they were letting people line up, so we also joined the line. They let us inside (another security checkpoint) but then held us outside the door to the stage. They had let some people inside, and after another 10 minutes of waiting, they let the rest of us inside. The previous panel was still going on, and we were glad to watch as it was one we had wanted to see (Light & Magik: A Glimpse Into the Magic of Season 2). We think they made a mistake letting people inside, and we were able to watch this previous panel, and then, when people left, we moved to prime seats on the second level.

The Celebration Stage (main stage) had two levels of seating. The floor level was reserved for VIP ticket holders (front half), media (back half), accessibility (right side), and first-come, first-served general seating (far left side only). This meant that you had a very slim chance of being in the front row (far left ~10 seats) as a general ticket holder.

Being there early meant we had another 90-minute wait, but at least we were sitting down and had awesome seats (middle balcony front row). The seats were tightly packed, and the venue was warm. You could see how warm the convention was by how much some of the celebrities were sweating on stage during the various panels all weekend.

It was neat that they had pre-panel entertainment, including inviting people in costumes to get up on stage, mini-contests, and other fun things to pass the time. They even had a collab with one of the groups for the Andor panel that Jon watched, where a large group of people dressed as Narkina 5 Prisoners participated in “One Way Out” runs, inspired by the Andor prison arc from the show.

On Saturday, when Jon had his Andor panel, he made sure to line up early so he could get a good seat, and I did the same with my Ahsoka panel later that same day. The chairs in the secondary stage (Galaxy) were so uncomfortable that after 2 hours of sitting, I couldn’t take it anymore. They were also so small and packed so close together. I chose a seat in the front row on an end so I would at least have some empty space on one side. The screens were also so high up that my neck was tired from looking up from the front row. It was fun going to an actual panel (even though it wasn’t the live stage), but it was so uncomfortable and I spent so much time waiting that I wouldn’t want to do it more than once. After the panel ended, they made us all leave so the next panel’s line could filter in, and by the time I was able to join that line, the room was 80% full and Jon and I were separated again (he had queued up while my panel was ongoing). I said hi and then left because I couldn’t stand sitting any longer in those chairs (even though I realized some of the chairs in the back were padded while the chairs in the front half were not. We had brought collapsible stools to help while in line, but maybe we should have also brought seat cushions…

The only other panel we bothered to wait for was Lucasfilm Animation’s 20th Anniversary panel. They showed an entire episode during the panel, which was exciting! We also got exclusive posters, which were neat. Jon also got an exclusive poster for Andor, but they didn’t have any posters for the Ahsoka panel, sadly.

Another example of poor planning was the pickup of these exclusive limited posters. They gave out raffle tickets before the panels to all attendees, and you exchanged the raffle ticket immediately following the panel for the actual poster. The location of this pickup was all the way in the back of the convention hall, while the panel location was outside of the convention center (Celebration stage) or midway into the convention center (Galaxy and Twin Suns). The passageway between the parts of the convention building was narrow, and the thousands of people trying to go in one direction to pick up the poster and then immediately trying to leave in the other direction caused a 20-30 minute block of people because they had not allowed for any other exits. We would have waited to pick up these exclusives, but we worried they would run out.

One of the worst planned parts of Celebration (other than poor execution of lines, odd choice in regards to panel lotteries being individual and not allowing groups or families to stick together unless their children were under 13/16 (conflicting information on age), grandfathering of most VIP ticketholders, and running out of stock or only having stock on Friday vs. the entire weekend, was the Celebration Shop. This was where Jon and I were most lucky. We managed to get our first choices for reservation times, and we intentionally split up our slots so we would have more opportunities for merchandise, with the assumption that more or new merchandise would be put out each day. When we lined up to enter the convention at 5:40AM on Friday, there was already a line of at least 20-30 people outside the merch store. They would not even be in the first 50 people to enter the store. First allowed inside were the VIP Celebration badgeholders (they also had their own entry time Thursday night before the show began), then anyone with a Lightning Lane reservation, and then the general line.

It was absurdly frustrating to wait for 3-5 hours before entering the store and seeing 100+ people enter ahead of you when you were in line before them. Jon and I probably wouldn’t have tried to go into the store without the skip-the-line lightning lane reservations. Still, they didn’t have all the merch available even then (45 minutes after they opened), and the lines inside the shop were sometimes long as well. The suggestion to have all Celebration merch available as a pre-order would have saved people time and frustration. However, you could order some merch ahead of time, and even that was not handled perfectly (running out even though it was prepaid and pre-ordered, or giving someone the wrong merch or the incorrect merch).

Pricing would set you back quite a lot for merch. Pre-ordered merch (when it was available, because it was limited and did sell out quickly) was moderately expensive. A 4-piece pin set would run ¥6500 ($44).

I had decided to cosbound (like Disney bounding but Cosplay version) because I didn’t want to carry too much extra for a costume to Japan and wasn’t fully committed to creating a cosplay. After seeing the imagination and creativity in people’s costumes, I’m set on creating a full costume (or two) for the next Celebration we attend! In addition to my Sabine-inspired outfit, I also decided to participate in the swag community. To keep costs down, I made my own swag – friendship bracelets! I also got some Sabine funkos, generic Star Wars stickers, and some Lego mini-figs. It was amazingly fun to give out the matching mini-fig to the person in that costume, and I enjoyed spotting, chatting, and giving out Sabine-specific swag to those wearing her cosplay!

Next time, I will for sure make swag again and put together a cosplay that travels well without taking up too much space or weight. I will bring the same bag to carry around because it was so handy, and bring many of the same items. I wore two bags with my outfit: one themed fanny pack with my passport, cash, swag, and my various personal items, and the other themed backpack with my collapsible stool, extendable lightsaber, a thin long-sleeved shirt to ward off the cold, deodorant, water, and a snack.

I wasn’t sure that buying a celebrity autograph or photo op session would be worth it. I’d heard that you get 10 seconds for a photo and 15-30 seconds for an autograph, that the lines would be long, and that it would be expensive. All of this was true, but it was also a close-up interaction with the real deal person, and Rosario Dawson said she liked my hair, so it was all worth it…

We paid for the photo ops for Rosario Dawson and Manny Jacinto before the schedule was released (¥15,995/$110 for Manny Jacinto and ¥28,250/$190 for Rosario Dawson), before we were able to book lightning lanes, and before the panel times were announced. Even with just one panel/day, one time slot for the lightning lane for the merch store, and two photo ops, it was difficult to fit everything into our weekend without fear of losing something we’d already ‘reserved’ due to lines. They scheduled our photo ops 20 minutes apart, and those lines moved SLOW. We had a 10 minute group line-up but… it wasn’t 10 minutes per group and though we were the first group for both celebrities we might have missed the second had we kept our original group sessions (and the no refunds, no show, not on time, no exceptions policy and the disorganized situation from the first day of celebrity photos/autos made us move the group for our second photo and we spent at least an extra 45 minutes in the line because of it… The expectation for multiple groups with a new group every 10 minutes was great, but the reality was that the celebrities did not start on time, and nothing was clear or quick. The group organizing the celebrities had overbooked, and everything was running overtime. Some celebrities were pulled to the Live stage while they should have been at their pre-scheduled photo ops/autograph times. We were again lucky to keep our paid for time slots and to not wait too long for either, to not be shoved out of our quick interactions, to get to shake hands and have enough time to say hi, to have our eyes open for the single photo they took, and for everything to go as smoothly as we could have hoped. Not everyone was as lucky, and paying so much for such a poorly executed aspect of Celebration was unfortunate for many.

All in all, it was an amazing experience, and we got lucky with a lot of what happened with our time at Celebration, even though we spent a lot of time in lines to make some of that luck happen. We were able to reserve a live stage panel (just Jon), a streaming panel (just me), and two skip-the-line lightning lane passes for the Celebration merch store. We were able to get great seats for the panels we managed to go to, the exclusive merch we wanted, and see so many cool costumes. I was able to spot and say hi to multiple Sabine cosplayers and trade or give swag to so many people.

Stay tuned for the even longer post about our time more broadly in Japan, including accommodation, transportation, costs, activities, food, and more!