Star Wars Celebration Chicago 2019 Photos #6: The Droids We Weren’t Looking For

Purple light-up astromech guts.

April 11-15, 2019, was the ninth American edition of Lucasfilm’s Star Wars Celebration, recurring major convention celebrating their works, creations, actors, fans, and merchandise, not always in that order. After jaunts around the U.S. coast and overseas, this year’s was in Chicago, gracing the Midwest with its products for the first time since 2005. My wife Anne and I attended Thursday through Saturday and fled Sunday morning…

It was a Star Wars Celebration. Of course there was a veritable droid army on the premises. Far more than we’d expected, once we stumbled upon their barely advertised hiding place. Granted, there were a couple patrolling the exhibit hall…

We’re used to remote-control life-size R2-D2s roaming around other entertainment and comic cons, but purple Artoo was a pretty variant.

I thought this R.C. BB-8 was in the middle of a dance circle, but most of the people in this pic were actually the perpetually long line for the Funko Pop booth.

…but not until Saturday afternoon did we stumble across one of Celebration’s coolest secrets. On an odd, disjointed corner of the West Building’s first floor was a hallway traveled only by those seeking the Twin Suns Stage, the obligatory animation-marathon room, and the Anthony Daniels cash-only meet-and-greet room. Anne and I happened to walk that way for a quick meet-up with an old friend — more about that in a future chapter — when I noticed two odd things.

ONE: droid tracks! Leading to…

TWO: C-3PO standing in a darkened doorway. Not the Anthony Daniels room.

We wandered toward Threepio and discovered the Droid Builders Experience, a room packed with droids and other replica characters built, sewn, and/or kludged by talented Star Wars fans. I later found a mention of them in the Celebration program, but I’d seen no mentions of it on the app or their website. Inside was a wide, wild world of Lucasfilm homages and recreations, many bearing flourishes from alternate realities.

We were fascinated and I was upset that we only found it by sheer dumb luck. Or possibly destiny, whichever.

Your standard droid lineup, plus banners from contributing fan clubs and chapters.

Among the best astromech variants was this Gatling droid, made in Allentown, PA. I’m a sucker for Gatling guns in my pop culture.

Mustafarian panning droid from Revenge of the Sith. Molten lava sold separately.

Fabulous sequined Mouse Droid!

View this post on Instagram

So #StarWarsCelebration has a secret Droid Room we didn't know was a thing. K-2SO and his Mouse Droid army were among the many fan-built wonders on hand. #starwars #rogueone #droids #chicago #starwarsfan #movies

A post shared by Randy Golden (@golden.randy) on Apr 13, 2019 at 10:29am PDT

Special centerpiece dedicated to droid slavers.

Jawa mannequin peers into your very SOUL.

Porg nest imples they breed and we can expect millions more in our future Star Wars movies and toy aisles.

A surprising number of Gonk droids, many with custom paint jobs.

GONK-E seems a reasonable enough mash-up.

Harder to explain: an Alan Tudyk-themed Gonk droid with voice chip reciting a few different Tudyk lines, including but not limited to “Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!“