Tickets for Celebration IV were scheduled to go on sale online on October 30, 2006 at approximately 12:00 PM Pacific. Badge options included adult and child four-day passes, single-day passes and free admission for children under six. Four-day badges for members of the Official Star Wars Fan Club included access to the Thursday, May 24 preview day, while the convention opened to all attendees beginning Friday, May 25.

Hotel booking was tied to the official registration process. The first announcement said discounted hotel room ordering would open in late summer or early fall 2006, and later ticketing information explained that attendees who purchased badges would receive hotel reservation codes by email. Those codes were scheduled to begin going out on November 2, 2006, allowing attendees to book from the official Celebration IV hotel block while rooms remained available.

Online registration continued into spring 2007. Badges ordered before the late March shipping cutoff were mailed, while fans who registered by April 30 could pick up their badges at will call at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Opening Ceremonies

The Star Wars Celebration IV Opening Ceremonies were held on Friday, May 25, 2007, the exact 30th anniversary of the original Star Wars theatrical release. Although Fan Club members had been admitted for a preview day on May 24, the ceremony served as the formal anniversary kickoff for the full convention weekend.

The ceremony included an official civic tribute from the City of Los Angeles. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa appeared at the event, welcomed fans to the city and announced that May 25, 2007 had been declared Star Wars Day in Los Angeles. Councilwoman Jan Perry also appeared and read from the city proclamation honoring the 30th anniversary of Star Wars and its impact on film, Los Angeles and popular culture.

The event mixed official remarks with fan celebration. Attendee reports describe the crowd singing “Happy Birthday” to Star Wars, with cake handed out afterward. Some fans also reported receiving commemorative USPS Star Wars stamp envelopes when entering the ceremony, tying the event to the 30th anniversary stamp program promoted during Celebration IV.

The most memorable moment came at the end of the ceremony, when a performer dressed as Boba Fett flew into the hall using a real rocketbelt-style jetpack and landed on stage. The stunt was performed by rocketbelt pilot Dan Schlund and became one of the signature images of Celebration IV’s anniversary festivities.

Carrie Fisher Evening Event

A Conversation with Carrie Fisher was held on Saturday, May 26, 2007 from 9:00 to 10:00 PM on the Concourse Stage. The separately ticketed evening event cost $15, had limited seating and was available only to registered Star Wars Celebration IV attendees.

The event was promoted as an informal, unscripted hour with Carrie Fisher, with no emcee and no formal interview structure. The focus was on Fisher’s own stories, memories and observations from 30 years of Star Wars, making it one of the more personal special events of the convention.

Fisher had appeared earlier in the weekend as part of the regular Celebration IV programming, but the Saturday night event gave fans a dedicated evening built around her voice and personality. Fan accounts remember the appearance for Fisher’s sharp humor, candid storytelling and relaxed stage presence, fitting the event’s loose, conversational format.

Fan Club Breakfast

Celebration IV featured two Fan Club Breakfast events held at the Omni Los Angeles Hotel, with sessions taking place on Friday, May 25 and Sunday, May 27, 2007. The breakfasts were ticketed events for members of the Official Star Wars Fan Club and were scheduled separately from the main convention programming at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

The event was promoted as “Breakfast With Jay” and featured Jay Laga’aia, who portrayed Captain Typho in ”Attack of the Clones” and ”Revenge of the Sith”. The breakfast gave Fan Club members a smaller, more relaxed setting to hear from Laga’aia, take part in fan-focused programming and spend time with other attendees away from the main convention crowds.

Programming included guest remarks, autograph opportunities, door prizes and entertainment. Laga’aia also performed for attendees, continuing his role as one of the more visible and energetic celebrity guests at the event. The breakfasts were part of Celebration IV’s broader Fan Club offerings, which also included early access privileges and a dedicated Fan Club Lounge during the convention.

The Vader Project

The Vader Project was a special gallery exhibition at Star Wars Celebration IV featuring Darth Vader helmets customized by contemporary artists, illustrators, graffiti artists, designer toy creators and pop-surrealist artists. The project was presented by Master Replicas Inc. and curated by Dov Kelemer of DKE Toys. Participating artists were given full-scale Darth Vader helmet replicas and invited to reinterpret the design in their own style. The finished helmets ranged from painted and graphic treatments to sculptural modifications that altered the shape, texture and visual identity of the original helmet.

The Celebration IV exhibit featured work from artists including Troy Alders, Kii Arens, Attaboy, Anthony Ausgang, Aye Jay, Gary Baseman, Andrew Bell, Tim Biskup, Buff Monster, Mister Cartoon, Mr. Clement, Robbie Conal, Dalek, Cam de Leon, Roman Dirge, Bob Dob, Marc Ecko, Eelus, Ron English, David Flores, Paul Frank, Huck Gee, Mike Giant, Joe Hahn, Frank Kozik, Peter Kuper, Joe Ledbetter, Tokidoki, MAD, Mars-1, Bill McMullen, Niagara, Mitch O’Connell, Estevan Oriol, Alex Pardee, Plasticgod, J. Otto Seibold, Shag, Sket-One, Winston Smith, Jeff Soto, Suckadelic, Touma, Urban Medium, Michelle Valigura and Amanda Visell.

Several helmets became especially recognizable within the project. Shag created a Tiki-inspired Darth Vader helmet, Marc Ecko designed a helmet with vintage pinup-style artwork, Urban Medium split the helmet between light side and dark side imagery and Alex Pardee created a battle-damaged piece later known as K.I.A. Other artists used the helmet as a base for bright graphic treatments, character mashups, horror-influenced designs, street-art motifs and sculptural reinterpretations.

The Vader Project was organized as an anniversary art exhibition rather than a charity fundraiser. Its focus was on bringing the visual language of contemporary art and designer culture into the world of Star Wars collecting, using one of the saga’s most recognizable objects as the shared canvas.

After Celebration IV, The Vader Project continued as a touring exhibition. It appeared at events and venues including Star Wars Celebration Europe, San Diego Comic-Con, Star Wars Celebration Japan, the Lucasfilm annual employee meeting and The Andy Warhol Museum. The project eventually expanded to 100 customized Darth Vader helmets, which were later exhibited and auctioned by Freeman’s in Philadelphia in 2010.

The Celebration IV show floor combined the usual mix of retail booths, prop displays, fan-built environments, hands-on activities, gaming demos and photo opportunities across the Exhibit Hall, Fan Fair Hall and several dedicated activity areas.

Lucasfilm Archive Exhibit

The Lucasfilm Archive Exhibit gave attendees an up-close look at original props, costumes and production pieces from across the Star Wars films. The display included recognizable costumes, creature pieces, droid-related elements and behind-the-scenes artifacts that brought the films’ physical production history onto the show floor.

Items associated with the exhibit included Leia’s slave costume, stormtrooper armor pieces, Luke Skywalker-related effects material, droid torture-rack-style displays and other original production pieces from the Lucasfilm archives.

Fan Fair Hall

Fan Fair Hall served as one of the most interactive areas of the convention. It featured fan club tables, large-scale fan displays, family activities, photo ops and participatory building projects. The hall had a different feel from the main dealer floor, with more room for fan-created environments and hands-on experiences.

One of the central visual pieces was a large-scale X-wing display. Fan Fair Hall also featured an enormous Endor-themed diorama, built throughout the weekend with help from attendees.

Diorama Builders Workshop

The Diorama Builders Workshop returned for Celebration IV with an Endor-themed project called Ewok Landscaping. Attendees helped create forest terrain, trees, huts, bridges and other scenery elements for a large-scale Endor display.

The final diorama included an Imperial landing platform, bunker, Ewok village elements, battle scenes and a working speeder bike chase. Participants used simple materials like posterboard and brown wrapping paper to build tree trunks, bark textures and forest details, adding their own small pieces to the larger scene.

The workshop also included prize giveaways throughout the weekend. Attendees could win items through badge markings, prize drawings and scheduled giveaways while supplies lasted.

R2-D2 Builders’ Room

The R2-D2 Builders’ Room was one of the busiest fan-built exhibit areas. The room featured working astromechs, droid parts, themed wall panels, computer consoles and photo setups designed to resemble a Star Wars environment.

The display included R2 units, R5 units, Sith probe droids, a power droid, a life-size IG droid bust, C-3PO builds, a B’omarr Monk and a working lava droid. Jawas were also part of the setup, inspecting and interacting with the droids.

A full-scale Tantive IV hallway diorama gave attendees a photo opportunity with the droids. Fan-made R2 units also moved through public areas during the weekend, drawing crowds wherever they appeared.

Homemade Landspeeder

A full-size homemade landspeeder was displayed near the USPS area in Fan Fair Hall. The fan-built prop served as a photo opportunity and gave attendees a close look at a carefully recreated Star Wars vehicle.

Pimp My Star Wars Ride

Fan Fair Hall included a Pimp My Star Wars Ride area featuring fan-created Star Wars vehicle builds and themed custom displays. This section added to the convention’s handmade prop culture, with vehicles and ride-inspired creations displayed alongside other fan projects.

Family Room and Kids’ Activities

The Family Room and nearby activity areas offered programming for younger fans throughout the weekend. Activities included Jedi Training Academy, Anakin’s Workshop, LEGO-building competitions, face painting, finger painting, storytelling and hands-on craft projects.

The Endor diorama project also had a strong family component, with volunteers helping kids create trees, huts and bridges for the growing forest display.

LEGO Displays and Activities

LEGO had a major presence on the show floor with product displays, building activities and life-size LEGO figures. A large LEGO Chewbacca display was one of the most recognizable pieces on the floor.

LEGO also ran a daily raffle for the chance to purchase one of 500 exclusive Celebration IV LEGO dioramas, with 100 available each day. LEGO-building competitions gave younger attendees a chance to participate in hands-on activities and win prizes.

Gaming and Demo Areas

Gaming had a strong floor presence through Wizards of the Coast, WizKids, Topps, Hasbro and related tabletop demonstrations.

WizKids introduced the Star Wars PocketModel Trading Card Game at the show, giving out sample packets with ships, cards and instructions for an online demo. Their booth featured demo tables where attendees could learn the game. A convention-exclusive collector tin included game packs and a limited-edition Millennium Falcon PocketModel.

In Fan Fair Hall, WizKids created an oversized version of the game with large ships, oversized dice and large-format cards. Kids could play for prizes, and some large pieces were given away near the end of the weekend.

Wizards of the Coast supported Star Wars Miniatures and the Star Wars Roleplaying Game. The company gave away copies of a new RPG book to the first 30 people each day who arrived at the booth at the scheduled time and used the phrase, “Let the Wookiee win.”

Hasbro’s Attacktix demo tables were also active throughout the weekend, with kids trying the tabletop battling game near display cases of Star Wars and Transformers figures.

Exhibitors and Vendor Displays

The Exhibit Hall featured a large vendor and licensing presence, with booths from Hasbro, Gentle Giant Studios, Sideshow Collectibles, LEGO, ACME Archives, LucasArts, Dark Horse Comics, Hallmark, DK Publishing, Topps, WizKids, Wizards of the Coast, Kotobukiya, Nikko Electronics, Mimobot, Fathead, Mello Smello and Pin USA.

Hasbro’s booth included displays for basic figures, battle packs, comic packs, Saga Legends, vintage-style figures, vehicles, Galactic Heroes, Titanium Series, Star Wars Transformers, Unleashed Battle Packs and Attacktix. The Ralph McQuarrie Concept Luke Skywalker figure was one of Hasbro’s major Celebration IV exclusives and drew long lines.

Gentle Giant Studios displayed statues, mini-busts, animated-style pieces and other collectibles. Sideshow Collectibles showed 12-inch figures, busts and statues, including Holographic Emperor material. Kotobukiya displayed new pieces, including an X-wing diorama and upcoming bounty hunter items.

Publishing, art and specialty merchandise also had a strong presence. Dark Horse Comics and DK Publishing represented Star Wars books and comics, ACME Archives focused on art, Hallmark displayed Star Wars products, Mimobot featured character-themed USB drives and Pin USA offered pin merchandise.

Art Show and Charity Areas

The Celebration Art Show featured officially selected Star Wars artists and limited-edition prints. Artists represented at the show included John Alvin, Matt Busch, Joe Corroney, Dave Dorman, Jan Duursema, Adam Hughes and others. Ralph McQuarrie did not attend, though two of his prints were represented.

Charity areas included silent auction and auction preview displays, giving attendees another place to browse rare items, collectibles and donated Star Wars material during the weekend.

Other Activity Areas

Additional show-floor and convention activity areas included Star Wars Laser Tag, the Tatooine Game Parlor, Fan Movies, the Fan Club Lounge and Star Wars in Pop Culture. These spaces added gaming, media, club activity and fan culture to the overall floor experience.

Celebration Store

The Celebration Store was one of Celebration IV’s major experiments in crowd control. After the long merchandise lines at Celebration III, organizers treated the store as its own attraction, giving it a larger footprint, a timed shopping system and round-the-clock hours. Celebration IV became the first Star Wars Celebration with a 24-hour official store and remains the only Celebration so far to use that format.

The store occupied much of Exhibit Hall A and used Quick Path shopping reservations to control traffic. Fans who registered in advance could reserve a two-hour shopping window, giving the store a more structured flow than the open-ended lines that had frustrated attendees two years earlier. The setup made the store feel closer to a controlled retail environment than a standard convention booth, with designated merchandise areas, formal shopping windows and a large cashier setup built for heavy volume.

The store carried official Celebration IV merchandise across broad categories like apparel, drinkware, bags, hats, pins, patches, magnets, posters, prints, baby items, lanyards and commemorative goods. Items leaned heavily into the 30th anniversary theme, with designs tied to classic trilogy imagery, Ralph McQuarrie artwork, event branding and character art. The official program book, commemorative posters and event-branded clothing made the store a central stop for attendees looking for Celebration-specific souvenirs.

Store Exclusive Hasbro Figure

The main figure exclusive at the Celebration Store was Hasbro’s Ralph McQuarrie Concept R2-D2 and C-3PO two-pack, released as part of the 30th Anniversary Collection. The set reimagined the two droids through McQuarrie’s early production designs, giving C-3PO a sleeker, Metropolis-inspired look and R2-D2 a more mechanical concept-art appearance.

The two-pack sold through the Celebration Store rather than the regular Hasbro booth, making the store itself part of the collecting experience. Attendees used their Quick Path window to enter the store, browse the official merchandise and purchase the exclusive figure along with other Celebration IV items. The system was designed to keep figure buyers from overwhelming the store all at once, although the figure still became one of the store’s signature purchases.

Unlike some later Celebration exclusives that vanished almost immediately, the McQuarrie droid two-pack appears to have been available in strong quantities throughout the weekend. That made the buying experience less frantic than Celebration III’s store rush and helped define the Celebration IV store as an unusually ambitious attempt to solve the convention merchandise problem.

Celebration IV had a different energy from the first three Celebrations. Those earlier events were tied closely to upcoming prequel releases, with the excitement of a new movie still ahead. CIV arrived two years after Revenge of the Sith, which meant the convention had to work without a new theatrical release as its center of gravity.

Instead, Star Wars itself became the attraction.

The 30th anniversary gave the weekend its purpose, and the event leaned into the full scale of the franchise: the completed six-film saga, the Lucasfilm archives, collecting culture, fan organizations, costumes, droid builders, artists, merchandise, gaming, animation and the shared memory of three decades of fandom. Mary Franklin later described the event as “one million square feet saturated in Star Wars,” a fitting summary of how CIV felt: large, dense and impossible to experience in full.

That sense of abundance shaped the fan experience. CIV was not the kind of convention attendees could simply complete. Steve Sansweet framed it that way at the time, describing an event with so many options that fans had to choose their own path through it. The weekend rewarded planning, but it also rewarded wandering. A fan could spend hours on the show floor, in Fan Fair Hall, at the Archive Exhibit, in the Art Show, around the R2-D2 Builders, near the diorama workshop or simply watching the crowd move through the convention center.

Fan Club Day on Thursday helped set that tone. For Hyperspace members, it functioned almost like a preview day, giving the most committed fans early access to the halls, the Celebration Store and the major exhibit areas before the full weekend crowds arrived. Many attendees used it to get oriented, shop, explore the floor and reduce some of the pressure from the busier public days.

Crowd management remained a major part of the experience. Celebration IV was larger and more polished than the earlier Celebrations in some ways, but it still carried the familiar reality of long lines, high-demand rooms and hard choices. The Celebration Store’s Quick Path system and 24-hour operation were the clearest attempts to address problems from Celebration III, especially the infamous store lines. The system gave CIV a more organized retail flow, even though the event as a whole still required patience and strategy.

The opening ceremonies became one of the defining fan memories of the weekend. Inside the hall, the ceremony had the feeling of an official birthday celebration for Star Wars, with city officials, the USC Marching Band, costumed fan groups, a George Lucas video message, a guest parade, a Star Wars Day proclamation and cake for attendees. It placed the franchise in a civic and cultural spotlight, fitting for an anniversary event held in Los Angeles.

Outside the hall, the same night became one of the event’s most frustrating moments. A suspicious package near the convention center led police to evacuate fans who were still waiting in line for the ceremony. The event continued inside while many fans outside missed it entirely. For those affected, the disruption was remembered less as a safety decision and more as a communication failure. The contrast was sharp: some attendees experienced a polished anniversary celebration, while others were left outside with little clarity and no way back in.

That tension was part of CIV’s overall character. At its best, the convention felt expansive, celebratory and unusually rich. At its worst, it showed how difficult it was to manage a massive, emotionally invested fan crowd across a sprawling convention center. The weekend could feel smooth if approached strategically, but overwhelming if a fan tried to do everything.

Los Angeles also gave CIV a distinct identity. The event carried more media attention and entertainment-industry presence than the earlier Celebrations. With hundreds of credentialed media members, city officials involved in the opening ceremony and the anniversary framed as a pop-culture milestone, CIV felt connected to Hollywood in a way that fit both the location and the occasion.

The fan-created parts of the convention gave the weekend much of its warmth. The R2-D2 Builders’ Room, Diorama Builders Workshop, fan club tables, costume groups and handmade displays made the event feel participatory rather than purely promotional. Fans were surrounded by official Star Wars history and fan-made Star Wars culture at the same time. That mix helped CIV feel less like a trade show and more like a temporary Star Wars city.

By the end of the weekend, the experience was defined by scale: too much to see, too many paths to take and too many pieces of Star Wars competing for attention. That was part of the appeal. Celebration IV made the case that Star Wars did not need a new movie release to gather fans at full strength. The fandom itself could carry the event.

The earlier stateside Celebrations had been built around anticipation for new films. CIV had no upcoming theatrical release as its engine, so the 30th anniversary became the framework: Star Wars as history, community, collecting culture, fan craft and a franchise with life beyond the movie calendar.

That mattered because it broadened the purpose of Celebration. The event could sustain itself through archive exhibits, licensee displays, fan rooms, costuming groups, droid builders, art, merchandise, charity events and shared anniversary ritual. Later Celebrations would refine that formula, but CIV showed that the model could work in the space between theatrical eras.

The first major look at The Clone Wars gave the weekend one of its most durable forward-looking moments. At the time, it was the next big Star Wars project after Revenge of the Sith. In hindsight, it pointed directly toward the animation and television era that would carry the franchise through the years that followed.

CIV also left behind one of Celebration’s strangest logistical experiments. After the merchandise problems at Celebration III, organizers tried a much more aggressive fix: a 24-hour Celebration Store and the Quick Path shopping reservation system. No other Celebration has repeated that exact model, which keeps CIV distinct in the history of official convention operations.

The aftermath was far less smooth. In 2008, Lucasfilm sued Gen Con, the company that produced Celebration IV under license, over accounting, reporting and payment issues connected to the event. The dispute also involved the Celebration IV charity auction, including money tied to Make-A-Wish.

Gen Con filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection soon after, and the Lucasfilm dispute became part of the larger financial fallout around its licensed event business. The case was eventually handled through the bankruptcy process, but it gave CIV a complicated afterlife beyond what fans saw on the floor.

For attendees, Celebration IV remained the massive 30th anniversary gathering in Los Angeles. For Celebration history, it marked a turning point: the last major U.S. Celebration of the Gen Con era, the first to prove the event could stand without a new movie release and an early version of the broader, more polished Celebration model that would follow.