Lucasfilm take a closer look at their head of fan relations Alex Vargas, a familiar face to Celebration visitors who is the liaison between the various fan groups, ReedPop and Lucasfilm at major events.
After Universal, Vargas moved into a role at a private events company in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he helped plan parties for large tech companies and the like. There he learned to work with the many stakeholders that are typically involved in planning such events. “You need to make sure that everybody knows what’s going on, what the schedule is and that you have everything done at the right time,” he says. “Because everything that we’re doing is for the guest experience. It’s the same with Star Wars Celebration. I went to two Celebrations before working at Lucasfilm and loved them, so I want to make sure that anybody who comes to Celebration is enjoying it as much as I did.”
Since joining Lucasfilm in 2019, Vargas has been part of the Star Wars Celebration production team in Anaheim in 2020, Europe in 2023, and the upcoming Celebration Japan in 2025 – planning for which is already underway. As head of fan relations, his main focus is fan content. “That’s anything on the show floor that’s presented by fans,” he explains. “So all the fan groups, all the fan panels, fan props, fan tables, the one-off events that are hosted by fans, all those kinds of things – that’s my main focus for the shows.
