I’d managed to get all of my autographs with plenty of time to spare for the Rogue One panel so I took my posters back to the car and grabbed something to eat. Rumours were rife that the cast would be making an appearance so I sat down to take it all in, relaxed that I’d got all of the autographs that I wanted and excited to see what was coming!
The panel did not disappoint. We got the entire main cast of the film along with director Gareth Edwards, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, Story Writer John Knoll and a few other Lucasfilm people.
Better still, half way through the panel they revealed a new poster for Rogue One and told the audience that EVERYONE in attendance would receive one on the way out. I was absolutely thrilled by this and no sooner had I heard the announcement than I was planning how to get some autographs on that beautiful poster.
We got to see a few clips from the film, Jiang Wen dropped a clanger of a spoiler then the panel ended with the trailer. As soon as the credits rolled I was up and out of my chair like a shot, running for the poster and the opportunity to get some autographs.
I darted out of the theatre and headed for the only direction that could be “backstage”, a glass door near the toilet block next to the Celebration stage. There I met Ollie, someone who I had been chatting to in the queue earlier who was similarly excited at the prospect of getting his poster signed. Frustratingly neither of us had a pen… a glance around the corner and GARETH EDWARDS was walking towards us.
In the chaos I’m not sure quite how it happened but a blue sharpie was produced and Gareth proceeded to write “This is the first time I’ve signed this poster” on Ollie’s poster! Once he’d completed that I shook his hand and expressed how excited I was for Rogue One, he said “Thanks”, signed my poster and added ‘2ND!’.
We thanked him and turned around to find the one and only John Knoll walking towards us. He also graciously signed our posters and posed for a photo!
Aside from Ollie and I, I only saw two other people getting their posters signed by Gareth and I don’t believe anyone else got John so we were feeling very lucky.
We hung around for an hour or so waiting for anyone else to appear from backstage but it seemed like we’d missed them. Surely enough an executive from Lucasfilm came out and told us that they were “in a press conference” and that we should “all leave this area”.. sadly for her, the confirmation that the cast were still in the building reinvigorated our desire to stick around.
We investigated a few other parts of the Excel around the area that we believe that the cast were in, by this point there were 7 of us who were determined to stick it out and get whatever we could.
Surely enough, after a further 2 hours of waiting around the cast started to emerge from the room that we’d identified as “the press conference room”. First to come out was Jiang Wen.. he was more than happy to sign for us and put a lovely bold autograph on the left hand side of my poster.
Next Felicity Jones and Forest Whitaker emerged but in both cases we were pushed away by Disney/Lucasfilm people and they didn’t sign for us.
Riz Ahmed was next to appear and he was great. He couldn’t have been happier to sign for us and it was almost like we were honouring him by even asking. I’m not sure how long that will last for! Either way I got a nice handshake out of him and complimented him on Four Lions, a favourite of mine.
After what seemed like a long wait Kathy Kennedy appeared. She seemed happy enough to see us waiting and put a lovely signature on each of our posters.
Sadly we didn’t get any photos of those signings as there just wasn’t enough time but next to come out of the door was Ben Mendelsohn the new bid bag guy, Director Krennic. He seemed like he’d had a good evening and mentioned that this was the first time he’d signed Rogue One stuff… pretty cool! Neil got this nice photo of him signing my poster.
At this point things turned south. I’m not sure what happened exactly but Lucasfilm decided to send in the heavies to clear us all out. We were still hoping for Donnie Yen, Mads Mikkelsen, Alan Tudyk and Diego Luna but this new batch of security was not to be messed with. I’d later heard that someone else in another group had been taking the piss by trying to get selfies with everyone and generally being a bit aggressive. There’s always one who has to spoil it.
Anyway it was a great experience and I couldn’t have been more thrilled to have these six names on my poster within 5 hours of owning it!
Mads Mikkelsen will be appearing at LFCC in a couple of weeks, and i’ll try for the rest at the premiere. This a great start and I couldn’t be happier with it!
After it was clear that there were no more autographs to be had I retired to the pub and joined Ben, Dave, Neil, Stu and Graham for a well earned pint!
We finished off the evening by checking out the room sale which was a rather cramped “Bring and Buy” sale in the lobby of a local hotel. It was slightly surreal but a fitting way to end such a brilliant day.
Autograph Posters 