Star Wars Celebration told through the eye-catching cosplayers

Star Wars Celebration cosplayers. Image: C Wassenaar

For five days, Star Wars fans, this writer included, descended on Chicago to talk about what they love most: the galaxy far, far away. Here’s how it looked.

Even though the next Star Wars Celebration will take place in Anaheim, California, next year, there was an electricity at McCormick Place and Wintrust Arena this past weekend. After all, this was the Celebration dedicated to Episode IX, now known as The Rise of Skywalker after Friday’s panel.

Some fans, like this writer, kept their Star Wars love to more practical means: wearing T-shirts and accessories, some purchased from the Celebration Store after some long waits. (It took me two hours, and I’m well aware that’s on the low end of the scale.)

Others, however, came in costume. Tasked with documenting all of this, I kept my eyes peeled throughout each of the five days, focusing not just on all the main characters you expect to see, but the true effort some people put into their costumes — or simply how the people wearing them became their characters.

Let’s start with a few that this writer didn’t get to take herself:

Rian Johnson gave this one a shout-out on Twitter, and there were indeed plenty of Reys and Kylo Rens on the floor.

This Amidala cosplayer brought more than enough handmaidens to get a shout-out on the official Star Wars Celebration Twitter account:

Hey, sometimes you need bearded handmaidens.