July 23, 2016
Location:
Colleton County Memorial Library in Walterboro, South Carolina
Description of Event (Please share as much info as you can):
This was Walterboro's first attempt at a pop culture convention and was organized by Walterboro's biggest super fan, Omar Jeter. He poured his heart into making this event really special for all attendees and vendors. Omar spent months attending conventions and asking everyone what they want more of. Vendors and fan exhibitors (like the 501st) were given access to special study rooms in the library to use for storage/dressing rooms. They also had access to a kitchen with lots of food and drink donated by local businesses. There were events all day long involving costumes, trivia, and games. The 501st was asked to judge the Chewbacca roar contest, which had some surprisingly good competitors. The prize for that was a 21 inch Darth Maul action figure.
Vendors were only charged a percentage of sales for their table space, all of which went to charity. Most vendors also donated a prize for the raffle at the end of the day. The Walterboro police and Colleton County Sheriffs Dept had a huge presence there, not because of security concerns, but to have fun with the rest of the attendees and to give demonstrations to the public at the outdoor parts of the event. Our little corner of the library was shared with some of Walterboro's best cosplayers who took photos with fans as Batgirl, Batman and Supergirl.
We didn't have a dedicated photographer, so it's hard to see in the attached photos how busy this event was. Also, it was very warm outside, so we didn't spend much time around the police demonstrations/tent or martial arts demos. Walterboro is an hour south of Charleston, so a lot of these folks haven't had an opportunity to attend an event like this. They were all very excited to see stormtroopers in person and have the chance to visit with artists and craftsmen. I joked early on that all of the events in our area have the same vendors, but it quickly became apparent that the audience was all very new conventions. At the end of the day, 936 people passed through, which is quite a feat for a small town library event.
Our newest stormtrooper Shawn is still technically unarmed, but I always show up with extra weapons to protect against Rebels. We decided that between his DC-15 and my spare blasters: DH-17, DL-44 and holdout blaster, the DH-17 made the most sense for him to carry. Shawn got outside to visit with the police exhibitors more than I did because he wasn't wearing the layers of fabric required for a biker scout. We were flanked for much of the day by Marty Harkin in her new Mandalorian armor. She's almost ready to apply to the Mercs.
Event Length (Hours): 7 hours
Indirect Funds Raised:
$240 (early estimate, some donations haven't been counted) was donated to the Colleton County Library System
Carolina Garrison Members in Attendance:
1. Chris Gould - Biker Scout
2. Shawn Cantey - Stormtrooper
Handlers:
1. Marty Harkin - Mandalorian Merc in progress
Check out some of the event photos below:
Without dedicated people to stay there, we decided not to set up a table display. I instead set up some helmets with my 501st sign and a small table with a variety of our trading cards. I don't think many people took cards though because it wasn't clear that they could and everyone at this event was so polite.
The medieval Lego display had a familiar element:
And I only have pictures of one, but there were quite a few Star Wars costumers there:
I did a little head-swap to make him feel at home:
