Deep in Manchester’s Trafford Park industrial estate, over 14,000 Star Wars fans are going to be living and breathing their dreams over the weekend at a massive new independent fan convention, For the Love of the Force.
Originally dreamt up by partners Carl Whiteley and Andrew Kleek, For the Love of the Force has taken the premise of a fan convention and blown it way up. The event features some of the most bad-ass props and movie sets, all recreated by set designers and Star Wars fans.
Is there a giant X-Wing replica in the middle? Yes there is. Can I go stare down Jabba the Hutt in his palace? You better believe it. Can I walk around an Ewok village on the Forest Moon of Endor. Yes you fucking can. There’s even a massive Star Wars memorabilia market stocked with rare collectibles, all choreographed by a full orchestra playing the movie’s most recognisable tracks.
For the Love of the Force also features a fully loaded Cantina, where you can meet space thugs like Greedo and drink cocktails – there’s even going to be a live Cantina band playing, and a garrison of Stormtroopers to keep order.
Appearing at the convention will be a slew of Star Wars nobility including Darth Vader himself, Dave Prowse and Michael Carter in full make-up as Jabba’s right hand man, Bib Fortuna.
Organiser Andrew Fleek spoke to us about the event:
The idea that we had was to make this more spectacular [than other conventions] by adding the full-sized movie props.Things to make it more exciting for kids and to families. One thing led to another, more and more props got added as we went along and we’re at the stage we’re at now.
The event exploded on facebook and over world media, with tickets for the three day event selling out almost instantly. While Saturday and Sunday are both completely gone with over 7,000 attending each day, there are still some tickets for Friday which you can pick up here.
For more info on For the Love of the Force, check out their website.
Mark is the Gaming Editor for UNILAD. Having grown up a gaming addict, he’s been deeply entrenched in culture and spends time away from work playing as much as possible. Mark studied music at University and found a love for journalism through going to local gigs and writing about them for local and national publications.