The Gentle Giant Exclusive Event at Forbidden Planet on Friday was a great success.  There weren’t as many people as at last year’s event but that was to be expected since it didn’t coincide with a Star Wars Celebration event in London and also that it was being held on a cold winter’s day instead of a bright summer’s day in July.

Around 200 people queued in total starting from 1am in the morning to ensure that they’d get the 2008 UK exclusives as well as a chance to get their head scanned and win an opportunity to get the head on a one-of-a-kind exclusive Mini Bust.

Read on for the full report...

The event kicked off at 5pm as advertised and on sale where three exclusive Gentle Giant items including the Galactic Marine Mini Bust, Coruscant Guard Trooper Maquette and Bronze Boba Fett Classic Bust.  As customers entered the store in small batches they were limited to 5 Galactic Marine Mini Busts (priced at £39.99 each), 3 Coruscant Guard Trooper Maquette (priced at £64.99 each) and 1 Bronze Boba Fett Classic Bust (priced at £24.99 each).  Karl Meyer was on hand to sign the purchases too.

Both the Galactic Marine Mini Bust and Coruscant Guard Trooper Maquette boxes had the Forbidden Planet Logo printed on – a first for Forbidden Planet Gentle Giant exclusives. 

Whilst these are Forbidden Planet exclusives they’ll also be offered to Premiere Guild Members in a few weeks time as well.  There are 3,000 Galactic Marine Mini Bust being produced and Forbidden Planet has 1,750 meaning that there’s 1,250 left over for the Premiere Guild.  There are 800 Coruscant Guard Trooper Maquette being produced and Forbidden Planet has 500 meaning that there’s 300 left over for the Premiere Guild.  Forbidden Planet had just 50 of the Bronze Boba Fett Classic Busts and they all sold out during the event.  The Galactic Marine Mini Bust and Coruscant Guard Trooper Maquette are still available in store whilst stocks last – some will also be distributed to the other Forbidden Planet stores but these will not be made available on-line by Forbidden Planet – they’re in store only items.

In addition to the three items for sale, Gentle Giant also brought over a few new prototype items including the Stormtrooper Statue, Clone Wars Obi Wan Animated Maquette, Darth Maul Animated Maquette, Halo 3 Arbiter Maquette and WALL-E Maquette.

The event went really well and both Forbidden Planet and Gentle Giant were very happy.  Roll on next year’s event and 2009 exclusives!