It was a scene straight out of Woodstock, with a few key differences.
Sci-fi fans outnumbered music afficionados at this massive festival held at the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum in 1999. In lieu of muddied hippies and drug-addled vagabonds, the festival saw rain-soaked Stormtroopers and Jedi Knights
trampling the dampened earth outside of the museum on the site of the former Lowry Air Force Base. And instead of musical performances by the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Carlos Santana, thousands came to see spaceships, mingle with robots and watch the films that had started it all.
That Star Wars Celebration held at the former Air Force hangar in 1999 was the first of its kind, a gathering that drew an estimated 20,000 fans to the relatively new neighborhood of Lowry in the course of three days. After its debut, the Star Wars Celebration became an annual tradition for fans across the world.
“If you’re familiar with any sort of Star Wars geekdom, the celebrations are huge,” said Matthew Burchett, the Wings Over the Rockies curator. “We were brand new, we had just opened. It was just a complete and utter zoo.”
More than a decade later, museum officials and a local group of hard-core fans of the “Star Wars” franchise will keep up that tradition on a smaller scale. The “Star Wars at the Hangar” event slated for May 4 will coincide with international Star Wars Day (“May the Fourth Be With You” … get it?). The event organized by the Rocky Mountain Fan Force will celebrate its third year at the Lowry museum and is expected to draw a crowd of thousands.
That represents a big growth from the museum’s first May the Fourth celebration three years ago, which featured a small group of fans watching films at the museum after hours.
“We had maybe 30 people. They came back to me and said, ‘Next year, we want to open it up to the public,’” Burchett recalled. “We had about four hours and about 2,500 people. It was nuts in here.”
This year’s celebration is set to include light saber training sessions with plastic foam pool noodles, a galactic zoology nursery where visitors can create fake Ewoks and Wookies and firsthand battle lessons from Stormtroopers. But the biggest star of the celebration in the 40,000-square-foot hangar will be an impressive memento from the inaugural celebration in 1999: a replica of an X-Wing Fighter spaceship.
The scale model of the X-Wing ship came to the museum in 1999 as part of that first celebration, a festival that coincided with the release of “Star Wars: Episode I” and the theatrical release of the three original films: 1977’s “A New Hope,” “The Empire Strikes Back” from 1980 and “Return of the Jedi” from 1983. The X-Wing fighter, which is a three-quarter scale model of the ships used in the films, remained at the museum after the hordes of fans left.
Devoted fans from the local Rocky Mountain Fan Force group helped restore and improve the piece over the past 14 years. They’ve added electronics, repainted and repaired the ship, and dealt with other fan organizations from across the country.
“It’s traveled quite a bit. We have to do repairs every time it comes back. It’s all done by fans here in town,” said Jennifer Peterson, a local tech expert who holds the title of crew chief with the X-Wing restoration project. “People here appreciate it. Colorado has a huge science fiction and fantasy base, and there are technology jobs. It’s also a great piece of history.”
Officially, the ship is on loan from Lucasfilms, but it’s found a popular homebase at the museum. Over the past decade, the X-Wing has drawn fans and celebrities alike to the hangar. The ship holds autographs from actors like Harrison Ford who played Han Solo and Ray Park who played Darth Maul. Lesser-known cast members from the Star Wars universe like David Prowse (the actor who was in the Darth Vader suit in the three original films), Peter Mayhew (the man in the Chewbacca suit) and Timothy Rose (he played the salmon-colored amphibian Admiral Ackbar) have also signed the ship. Even George Lucas, the creator of the “Star Wars” universe, has signed the miniature X-Wing.
That piece is just as popular as the World War II-era bombers, jet fighters and other aircraft that take up the rest of the museum.
“We had a couple who flew here from Canada to sit in the thing and get their picture taken,” Burchett said.
The ship was also a centerpiece of last year’s event. According to Burchett, thousands lined up and waited for hours for a chance to sit in the cockpit for photos. The demand was too much, Burchett said, and they’re planning on scaling back the access this year. Museumgoers will have to buy their tickets online for a chance to get to sit in the cockpit.
That’s not likely to dampen the sales numbers. Staff are expecting a crowd of up to 3,000 during one day. Wings Over the Rockies staff member Josie Ortega said she’s fully prepared for a wide range of costumes and creativity, if last year is any guide.
“It was pretty crazy. We had people nonstop all day. There really isn’t a lot of comparison to a normal day,” Ortega said. “There were a lot of families dressed up,” she added, recalling a particularly enthusiastic clan of fans, “The father was Han Solo, the mother was Princess Leia and the baby was Yoda … You could tell that most of the costumes were handmade.”
That kind of zealous devotion to the genre is just fine with Burchett. A self-proclaimed nerd when it comes to aviation and World War II history, Burchett spoke about the event with an obvious familiarity with the Star Wars universe. Decked in a red T-shirt that bore the engineering plans for the Millennium Falcon, Burchett spoke of the thrill that came with meeting Ford and smiled big when he talked about swapping stories with Prowse.
The legions of fans that descended on the Wings museum in 1999 may have strained the building in terms of sheer capacity, but Burchett has no hesitation about welcoming the fans back to the hangar.
“I have never met a better group of people than Star Wars fans. Everything they do benefits a charity or nonprofit,” Burchett said. “All of it is because they just love the franchise.”
Reach reporter Adam Goldstein at agoldstein@aurorasentinel.com or 720-449-9707
“Star Wars at the Hangar”
Will run from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on May 4 at the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum, 7711 East Academy Blvd. in Lowry.
Admission starts at $12.
A random drawing of ticket holders who purchase online will be conducted on May 2 for tickets to sit in the X-wing.
There are 500 opportunities to sit in the X-Wing: 270 on May 4 and 230 on May 11. Information and tickets: wingsmuseum.org.