By George & Josh Bate
Star Wars Celebration Japan is less than 50 days away now, which means expect more news about the panels and programming offered at the massive Star Wars event in the coming weeks.
On the official website for Star Wars Celebration Japan, Lucasfilm and ReedPop have announced the major panels for the convention (in addition to information about how to gain access into the panels if you’re attending).
The following are the four main panels of Star Wars Celebration Japan…
- Friday April 18: The Mandalorian and Grogu
- Saturday April 19: Andor: A Star Wars Story
- Saturday April 19: Ahsoka
- Sunday April 20: First Look: Star Wars: Visions Volume 3
Before we get into how to reserve tickets to these panels, there’s a few interesting points to comment on. Historically, as evidenced by Star Wars Celebration Anaheim 2022 and Star Wars Celebration Europe 2023, the big convention has kicked off with a panel called Lucasfilm Studio Showcase. This panel has typically been an approximately 2 hour panel in which all kinds of major upcoming Star Wars movies and shows are presented and announced. For instance, the Lucasfilm Studio Showcase panel at Celebration Europe 2023 featured information and footage from Andor Season 2, The Acolyte, The Mandalorian Season 3, Skeleton Crew, Ahsoka Season 1, and three Star Wars movies (New Jedi Order starring Daisy Ridley as Rey, James Mangold’s Dawn of the Jedi movie, and an untitled Dave Filoni film set during the New Republic era). Star Wars Celebration Japan, however, will seemingly not have one big panel and, instead, will have several panels that each focus on individual projects.
Of note, these are not ALL the panels that will be offered at Star Wars Celebration Japan. The above are just the major panels that will require reservation ahead of time. There will be plenty of other panels at Star Wars Celebration Japan that have yet to be announced. If we’re speculating, we’d say there’s probably going to be a Revenge of the Sith 20th Anniversary panel, a Marvel Comics panel, a Dark Horse comics panel, a Lucasfilm Publishing panel, possibly a The Force Awakens 10th Anniversary panel, and maybe a Lucasfilm Animation panel.
Regarding the four major panels discussed above though, panel reservations will be required. And now we have a better sense of what those panel reservations will entail.
Unlike previous Celebrations in which a lottery system was used, Celebration Japan will use a reservation queue, much like the one used to purchase tickets when they became available.
Fans can make one panel reservation per day. This means that fans can only choose one of the two panels available on Saturday April 19 (either the Andor Season 2 panel or the Ahsoka Season 2 panel). As the panels will unfold live in-person on the Celebration Stage and will be streamed onto the Galaxy Stage and Twin Suns Stage, it is unclear currently if fans will be able to select which stage they wish to watch the panel on or if this will be auto-selected based on remaining availability.
Fans are only eligible to reserve panels as the ticket holder themselves, meaning that tickets must be transferred to a person before panel reservations begin so that they can reserve panels for themselves. This also means that there will not be group panel reservations at Star Wars Celebration Japan. Instead, panel reservations will be on a person-by-person basis.
These panel reservations open at March 25 at 4:00 PM PDT / March 26 at 8:00 AM JST.
Those lucky enough to have Jedi Master VIP badges do not need to participate in the panel reservation process as they are guaranteed admission to all panels on the Celebration Stage.
More information about the panel reservation system at Star Wars Celebration Japan can be found here.
Also revealed by the official Star Wars Celebration Japan site was information about LightSpeed Lane reservations, which give fans access to the official Star Wars Celebration Store. These reservations open on Thursday March 13 at 4:00 PM PDT/Friday March 14 at 8:00 AM JST.
The full schedule of panels at Star Wars Celebration Japan will be revealed later this month.