It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the third edition of Fan Expo Chicago at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in the suburb of Rosemont, Illinois. Risen from the ashes of the late Wizard World Chicago, which we attended eleven times, Fan Expo has put forth tremendous efforts to maintain the previous showrunners’ geek-marketed traditions for longtime fans’ expectations. We were largely impressed with the results, even last year’s edition when the ongoing WGA/SAG-AFTRA strikes necessitated strict guidelines on the actors’ interactions. Every large-scale comic-con has its snags, of course. For better or worse, that’s all in the game.

Judgments on their 2024 installment depend on whom you ask, how much they love wall-to-wall crowds, whether or not they needed ADA accommodations, and which stars they wanted to meet from the extremely long guest list. As our lead photo hints, this would promise to be no ordinary show.

Today’s con-going Star Wars fan has their list of actors they’d love to meet from that galaxy far, far away. We’ve been shocked at some unforgettable experiences, which is why we’ll never, ever stop sharing our Carrie Fisher story at every opportunity. We fondly recall the one time we were allowed in the same building as George Lucas and understood why we were kept several hundred feet away from him. We accept we’ll never see Harrison Ford in the wild without hiring a bounty hunter to drag him to us. We always assumed the same would hold true for Luke Skywalker himself, Mr. Mark Hamill, unless we scrounged for the funds and resources to journey out to one of those prestigious coastal cons like San Diego or New York Comic Con. Even at those he’s a rarely sighted unicorn.

As you can imagine, our heads exploded when Fan Expo announced Hamill would appear at this year’s show. Not a hoax! Not a dream! Not an imaginary story! A statistical impossibility suddenly became a once-in-a-lifetime offer. Predictably, his prices were heart-stopping by Midwest con standards. After much discussion, the two of us agreed to go in together on Hamill as mutual gifts on the occasion of our 20th anniversary. We never spend that much on gifts for any occasion whatsoever, but the 20th is one of the rounder, bigger-deal anniversaries, which really helped our rationalization process.

To give you an idea of what we didn’t buy: we bought the cheapest-level autograph, which was permitted only on an 8×10 photo. Next level up was $500.00 for him to sign books, comics, magazines, scripts, newspapers, trading cards, DVDs, video games, mini-posters, action figures, signs, and photos larger than 8×10. Most expensive was $700.00 for 3-D items, props, lightsabers, clothing, full-size movie posters, and so on. Over on the photo-op side, we’d only need a photo for two, which cost the same as the cheapest-level autograph. Anyone bringing a party of three or four would have to cough up $450.00; parties over four had to buy more than one op. In that respect, our final damage could’ve been far worse. We knew we would not be buying separate autographs for each of us. Fortunately I’d already written off the idea of him ever cosigning one of the DC animated DVD sets I’ve previously had signed by numerous other voice actors. No Joker souvenir for me, then, which is fine.

It could’ve been still worse if we’d also been tempted to shell out for even more highest-tier guests. Fan Expo decided to make it the ultimate Star Wars party and invited two other world-famous Jedi, past and present: Hayden Christensen from the Prequels and Rosario Dawson, star of the Disney+ series Ahsoka. Fortunately I already met Dawson at Wizard World Chicago 2016, and we’d just met Christensen at last spring’s Indiana Comic Convention, which became more of an epic undertaking than we’d hoped.

Before the big weekend arrived, we were provided with most of the necessary facts, timelines, rules and procedures. Upon arrival, Hamill autograph purchasers were asked to report directly to an exhibit hall booth located at the intersection of the main autograph area and Artists Alley. We’d exchange our initial QR codes for physical tickets with our scheduled autograph time on it. Ten minutes prior to that time, we were to report upstairs to Hall G, which was devoted entirely to the Hamill and Christensen autograph tables, photo-op booths, waiting lines, photo printers and (for yet another optional fee) photo-framing service.

Hamill had numerous rules about autographing. He would sign your item and that’s it — no quotes, no character names, no personalization, just his name. I feared he’d skimp like some actors do and simply sign with an M followed by a long dash, then an H followed by another long dash. Worst-case scenario would be a big M and a single slash across the photo.

In addition, Hamill would star in his very own panel Friday night at 8:00 pm. That was also ticketed and likewise tiered. Highest-priced Gold tickets got front-section seats; Silver tickets got guaranteed seating, not quite as good but potentially pretty good if you arrived soon enough, and priced the same as some club concerts I’ve attended. Silver ticketholders were permitted to begin lining up at 6:00 and would begin seating at 7:20. Any Silver ticketholders who weren’t present by 7:30 would be mingled with general-admission attendees who didn’t actually have to pay to attend but who would only be allowed inside to the extent of any open seats remaining. In all we paid for Silver panel tickets, a Friday autograph session and a Saturday photo op.

To their credit, the week of the show Fan Expo sent us invested parties a lot of emails about all of this, including a map to the initial ticket-exchange booth. For those who wanted to navigate the weekend without peppering volunteers or online fans with endless questions, they made sure we had the necessary study materials. Between the two of us voracious readers, we managed.

Despite our con prep, one major detail was missing: by the week-of, we knew our photo op time — Saturday at 12:40 — but Friday autograph times would apparently depend on when we got to the autograph-ticket exchange booth. To hedge our bets, we’d bought upgraded weekend passes that would let us into the show floor two hours early on Friday — same time as VIP ticketholders who’d otherwise far outspent us for weekend-long perks.

Timeline of Hamill-related and Hamill-tangential events on Friday:

12:05 — After an early lunch we arrived at the Stephens Center, walked the painless security/check-in obstacle course and joined the non-VIP early-entry line over by the meeting rooms. We whiled away the next two hours chatting with a schoolteacher from Iowa whose primary objectives involved Artists Alley commissions, none of this Star Wars rigmarole for him. At one point Anne ran off to pick up the free junk that came with our upgraded passes — extra weight that would bog us down all day, stuff we didn’t deeply care about, but was ours by upgraded-ticket purchasing rights.

2:00 — Volunteers threw open the doors, gave VIPs a head start, then let the rest of us stampede inside. I left Anne a mile behind — my longer gait versus her cute tiny legs — and found the ticket-exchange booth already crowded but well staffed. Anne eventually caught up but waited for me outside the line, finding it too crowded to shove through and join me.

2:20 — Ticket in hand, I learned our autograph session would be at 5:45. At last we had a real itinerary. Fortunately we had no other Friday appointments, only Hamill’s signing and panel. They also asked me to pick a free 8×10 photo from several options at hand. All of them were Luke Skywalker at various ages, from Tosche Station mallrat to Ahch-To hospice-hermit. No Joker, no Trickster, no Arthur Pym, no What We Do in the Shadows guest vampire, no head shot of Hamill being himself — just Luke, Luke, Luke, Luke, LUKE. Anne usually picks the 8x10s and has certain rules about them, not me. I frantically texted her, but she was distracted and hoped I’d use my best judgment.

5:40 — After a few hours’ show-floor browsing and an early supper, we rode the main lobby escalator to Hall G and joined the non-VIP autograph line of considerable length. We were already exhausted — Anne from lugging around the free junk, me because I’d made the tactical error of buying an oversized hardcover too early in the day. But it was a really cool book, and it was on sale!

Word then went around that Hamill had just finished the day’s photo ops and was taking a break before manning his table.

6:15 — We think Hamill began signing for VIPs around now, give or take ten minutes.

6:40 — We still haven’t moved. I got more and more anxious about the odds of our 8:00 panel seating. I feared if things ran too far behind, Hamill would stop signing at some point, beg off to go do the panel, then come back and finish our lot. That’s exactly what Christensen had done at Indiana Comic Con when his schedule went awry. He and numerous unlucky fans wound up being there till at least 10 pm that evening. I hated having that precedent in recent memory.

As if reading my mind, one volunteer asked the assemblage how many of us had Gold or Silver tickets for the upcoming panel. At least half of us raised our hands. She wandered off. We kept our arms up a bit longer, for fear of where this might be going. My worrying expanded to some dread that they’d try to bamboozle us Kamp Krusty style and bring out a drunkard in a Jedi robe, or placate us with his nonunion Mexican equivalent Marco Hamilio.

Did I mention the A/C conditions in the Stephens Center weren’t cooling all areas to maximum comfort? Let’s toss that in here: much of the building was warm to an unkindly extent. Some folks were more sensitive to it than others. Anyway, also around this time, give or take ten minutes, a lady in line began feeling woozy and near passing out. A fellow of John Goodman height and timbre began bellowing for some volunteer to come bring her a chair. As it happens, a nearby fan offered up a collapsible portable stool they’d brought for their own contingency purposes. Other folks offered sugary or salty foods in case such imbalances might be contributing. By and large, fans were looking out for other fans.

7:00 — The same volunteer began moving Gold and Silver panel ticketholders into a separate line to accelerate them through, one row at a time. After a few rows’ worth of effort, she wandered away and communication stopped. The rest of us as-yet-unseparated ticketholders declared mutiny and sorted ourselves into that line. The volunteer returned and assumed another nearby volunteer had sent us all over. The second volunteer didn’t narc on us. Eventually the first volunteer resumed communicating and told us Hamill wouldn’t start the panel until everyone currently present in the autograph area had had their turn. That was mostly a relief, though that led to a different concern — how late the night would go.

Once he was in place and the system was fully staffed and functioning, we realized Hamill was signing really quickly. The tense, fast-paced atmosphere didn’t encourage typical autograph-line chitchat with the star, which is usually one of the biggest perks of getting an autograph in the first place. Hamill was cordial, but necessarily curt under the pressured circumstances. Or maybe he was in a curt mood? I wouldn’t know. He was seated with two tables between himself and us fans, an effective barrier for enforcing the “no touching” rule in effect.

7:22 — Our turn came. The 8×10 I’d chosen was passed down to him from his six assembly-lined helpers. He signed it and passed it to us. Anne simply held up two fingers and said, “Peace out.” He returned the gesture. The moment wasn’t everything we hoped, but this did not feel like an occasion to ask three-part questions. Sometimes keeping it simple is for the best, especially when hundreds of equally anxious fans are still in line behind you and will curb-stomp you to death online in absentia if you choose such moments to go all obnoxiously self-centered, regardless of whether or not you got your ultimately ephemeral “money’s worth”. Regardless: primary objective achieved.

At the time, our Mark Hamill autograph experience seemed disastrous to our fatigued selves. Doing the math in hindsight, it’d only taken 90 minutes. We’ve had far longer, much worse lines. Again I direct you to our Carrie Fisher experience for one of several such examples contained throughout this blog’s 12-year history.

7:24 — We descended back to the main lobby, stopped for a bathroom break, headed over the conference rooms, took that area’s escalator up to the Main Theater, and joined a short line of fellow Silver ticketholders corralled beyond the entrance who’d likewise been judged too late for good seats. We were still guaranteed seats, but kept at bay nevertheless as punishment for the sin of trying to have our Jedi cake and eat it too.

7:50 — Silver-ticketed stragglers were let into the theater to choose from the remaining crappy seats. On stage, frequent Midwest comic-con moderator Victor Dandridge Jr. acted as pre-show entertainment. Free lightsabers were awarded to random audience members who had winning stickers under their seats. Then he asked the crowd what IPs they thought should have Star Wars stuff added to them. Among other verdicts, all agreed adding lightsaber users to The Walking Dead would reduce the series to a half-hour short film.

8:08 — Showtime! But no Hamill yet. Instead we were surprised with a very special opening act: Giancarlo Esposito! Star Wars fans know him best as the tyrannical Moff Gideon from The Mandalorian, though I am begging those same Star Wars fans to broaden their viewing horizons vis-à-vis Esposito’s storied career. Regardless, he knew his audience and performed in character as Gideon (if not in costume), extolling the might of the Empire and beseeching the crowd for volunteers to help conquer the galaxy and whatnot. Acting as his mostly silent minions were four cosplayers from one of the Star Wars fan groups at the show.

8:14 — No sign of Hamill yet. Esposito drops character and begins taking audience questions. He plugs his upcoming debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the villainous Sidewinder in next year’s Captain America: New World Order. There’s a question about Vader, then a question about his favorite character, which never receives a definitive response.

8:18 — Ladies and gentlemen, Mark Hamill! He really did finish that entire autograph line in impressive time.

Hamill sat alone onstage, dressed darkly except for a pair of Simpsons socks. He had no moderator, no sidekick or costar. Topics off the top of his head included but weren’t limited to:

• His role in Mike Flanagan’s upcoming film The Life of Chuck, a Stephen King non-horror adaptation starring Tom Hiddleston, with its three acts to be played in Nolan-style reverse chronological order. (Flanagan and his wife Kate Siegel were supposed to be at this con, but sadly canceled.)
• Flanagan’s next film after that now filming in Winnipeg, an adaptation of Stephen King/Richard Bachman’s harrowing The Long Walk.
• The trick of finding the right voice for Arthur Pym in Flanagan’s Fall of the House of Usher.
• His role as the Flying Dutchman, the big-bad in next year’s The SpongeBob Movie: Search for Squarepants.
• Next month’s DreamWorks release The Wild Robot, in which he’s a bear.
• His doggies, some of which came with him to the show and could be heard yelping backstage, at least one of which came out front and wandered for a bit before someone enticed the li’l scalawag off.

He then opened up the floor to questions, which took the form of everyone shouting out the names of random IPs over each other. Winners and their ensuing digressions included but weren’t limited to:

• How he was reluctant to play the Joker and risk being compared to his predecessors, while his agent hoped he’d play Alfred because he was in more episodes and therefore would’ve earned more money. Ultimately his laugh won the part, though when time to record came months later, he couldn’t remember how he’d done it and had to listen to his own audition tape.
• His only animated role prior to Batman, in the 1973 cartoon Jeannie (based on I Dream of Jeannie!), in which he played the titular genie’s new teenage master.
• How the Joker led to him being typecast as other maniacal villains for a while.
• The pretty wild evolution of Arleen Sorkin’s originally nameless henchwoman — with a voice inspired by Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday — into the DC Comics superstar she is today.
• His big role in Avatar: The Last Airbender, which I haven’t seen.
• How the minds behind the zany Regular Show are planning 44 new half-episodes as we speak and have invited him to come play Skips again.
• The mostly forgotten Time Squad, costarring Rob Paulsen and Pamela Adlon (whom he regards as a dear, foul-mouthed friend).
• He doesn’t like to bring up Carrie Fisher, but remembers his first time going out to dinner with her, only to have her unload on him about her dysfunctional famous family — Eddie Fisher’s drug addiction, whatever Debbie Reynolds was up to at the time, etc. Then there was Fisher’s next birthday party, attended mostly by children of famous people.
• Prior to acting, his closest thing to a “brush with greatness” was a childhood neighbor who was an airport baggage handler that once had to return Jerry Lewis’ lost wallet to him, in exchange for a $50 reward.
• While joking about how he doesn’t “work blue” (for you kids out there, an old standup phrase meaning “doesn’t curse while performing”), he allows himself a single lapse into politics: “May the Force be with you…unless you’re MAGA. Then you can go Force yourself!”
• How The Empire Strikes Back director Irvin Kershner was “a real actor’s director”, as opposed to Lucas, who wasn’t the sort to talk over motivations in a scene or other aspects that other filmmakers deem essential.
• Though he had nothing to do with it, he mentioned loving the recent Predator prequel Prey. Can confirm: it’s awesome.
• He recalls driving with Lucas in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater on Star Wars‘ opening day and being stunned by the line around the block despite very little advertising.

9:12 — Hamill’s doggies are sent out again from backstage as a “wrap it up” cue, possibly the first time anyone who’s been on The Simpsons has ever had a show ended by someone literally using the command, “Release the hounds!” Hamill takes the hint while reminiscing about earning only $1,000/week making Star Wars compared to TV parts of the era that paid ten grand or so. It’s safe to say this weekend netted him more than those amounts combined and then some.

Thus ended our Friday at Fan Expo Chicago, whereupon our teeming horde headed directly across the Skybridge to the parking garage, all tried leaving at the same time, and traffic-jammed ourselves for a bit. Call it the foreshadowing for the next day on the show floor.

But very little of that pandemonium would pertain to Hamill. Far as our Mark Hamill experience goes, here’s our timeline of Saturday events:

12:10 — After a bit of wandering, one scheduled photo op, one unplanned autograph/selfie session with a lower-paid Star Wars actor, and cake for lunch, we headed up to Hall G a bit early for our 12:40 photo op with Hamill (officially labeled “Group 3” of our subsection), in case anything had gone wrong. We pretty much saw it coming.

We found the gate to the Hamill/Christensen joint photo-op area bottlenecked with hundreds of frantic fans. Even though this specialized photo-op area only had two whole actors to handle, all their ops were now running behind. A volunteer with a microphone offered updates every 10-15 minutes. Upon our arrival, dual Hayden/Hamill ops were in progress. Most of Hayden’s subsequent solo-op groups had been assigned rows, but not all of them. Some of Hamill’s “groups of 4” solo ops had also been assigned rows, but not all of them. None of Hamill’s “groups of 2” solo ops (our category) had been called yet.

Every few minutes, newly arriving fans would walk up to the mob in a tizzy, assume they were late for their op, and brazenly try shoving their way through to the front, only to learn they too were premature and uninformed and needed to step off. We were later told after the fact that at some point the lone microphone allegedly broke, which explains why the teeming masses were receiving more new arrivals than they were updates.

12:50 — By this time all Hayden solo-ops had assigned rows, as did all Hamill “groups of 4” ops. From Hamill’s “groups of 2”, only ADA-stickered guests and VIPs had been called up, none of the rest of us. In our roles as citizen-at-large, the two of us began offering updates to newcomers whenever we spotted them. Somehow for a few minutes we became unpaid traffic directors. “Hayden or Hamill? Group of 4 or group of 2?” I’d ask, then send them headlong into the fray as needed.

1:00 — With the announcement drowned out by everyone’s anxieties for lack of a hot mic, we could tell all Hamill’s “groups of 2” had been called because the tide suddenly began flowing through the gate. Most of the unhearing crowd had no idea, so the assigned rows for Groups 1 and 2 were pretty sparse, which worked to the advantage of the mightier turnout for our more observant or more within-earshot Group 3.

1:10 — Badabing, badaboom, we’re done, jazz-hands hard copy in hand — i.e., our lead photo. Unfortunately the convention center Wi-fi went haywire around that same time, and remained snarled for the next couple hours, so we never received the digital copy that we’d paid extra to have.

At the time, our Mark Hamill photo-op experience seemed disastrous to our fatigued selves. Doing the math in hindsight, it’d only taken an hour. We’ve had far longer, much worse lines. It only felt awful to us in the moment because of all that rampant, unbridled uncertainty bordering at times on hysteria.

I understand Hayden Christensen fans weren’t quite so lucky. We’ve heard horror stories from other folks about spending 5-7 hours in his lines while he ran hours behind schedule. When this happened at Indiana Comic Con — where we waited 2½ hours for his photo op and didn’t leave his autograph line till forty forty minutes after the exhibit hall closed — the scuttlebutt was that his delays had been caused by an ungainly fan-related incident. We’ve heard no such excuses or explanations for his delays upon this occasion. We’re sorry to hear the Christensen experience sucked for more than a few.

As for us…we got our panel (with bonus classy surprise guest!), we got our photo op, and we got our autograph.

…and that’s our story today of a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We presume Hamill isn’t taking the Stan Lee road to elderly-abused celebrity poverty and making Chicago only his first stop on a years-long comic-con circuit tour. If that should become his fate, we can take comfort in having met him before his already staggering prices double or triple. So by then it’ll feel like we got a discount! Now I feel even better about our rationalization.

…

To be continued! Other chapters in this very special miniseries:

Part 2: A Single Measly Cosplay Gallery!
Part 3: Stars and Strifes Forever!
Epilogue: Foods Beyond the Stephens Center