Collecting Star Wars V: Echo Base Live

In the second article of a trilogy covering 'go to' events for Star Wars collectors, we move north to find the Force in a midlands shopping centre.

Apr 06, 2025

Echo Base Live describes itself as “Europe’s premier Star Wars collectors event”. It is one of, if not the biggest event of its kind. To paraphrase Jedi archive librarian Jocasta Nu*, if you can’t find what you’re looking for on hundreds of stalls at Echo Base, (there’s a good chance) it doesn’t exist.

While action figures, in their various scales and eras are still front and centre in the Star Wars collecting community, all the ancillary merchandise from five decades of the franchise more than has its place at the table(s), and there’s a Kamino sized ocean of it.

“Imagine a shop, but everything is Star Wars” - To give an idea of the scale of both the event and the range of products available I filmed the below walkthrough at the March 2025 event, the 16th in the series.

As Echo Base grows in popularity, so does its space requirement. For this edition of the biannual fair at the Kingfisher Shopping Centre in Redditch, the show moved locations to occupy the entire ground floor of a former Debenhams department store. Even at the five minute mark in the walkthrough video I still hadn’t covered every aisle. To walk around and look at everything in detail took me two hours.

The event is free to attend from 10am to 3:30pm, with the option of early bird entry from 9:15am for £10. I’ve not taken advantage of the latter option so far myself, but I’m sure it’s a wise investment for those among the first through the doors, whether you find an in-demand item, or a bargain that ensures the pass pays for itself.

Disclaimer: this is not the original actor who played Jabba the Hutt

In addition to the sellers, each event has a line up of special guests from the galaxy far, far away signing prints and other merchandise (bought on-site or acquired previously). Each instalment of Echo Base has a theme (Jabba’s Palace, Battle of Hoth and Ewok Adventure are a few recent examples) and the characters/actors appearing fit within this.

The March 2025 theme was ‘Destroy the Death Star’ and featured a variety of imperials and rebels, including iconic pilots such Wedge Antilles (Dennis Lawson) and Biggs Darklighter (Garrick Hagon). Fans also have the option of joining these names for a dinner event the night before Echo Base.

I’m yet to purchase an autograph, or dine with the stars. It was enough for me to stroll by the signing area, suspend my disbelief for a moment and pretend to be in the presence of heroes of the rebellion, not the actors that portrayed them (who do of course, also deserve full credit for their performances of said heroes).

At the October 2023 event I did step forward to meet a stunt performer, Paul Weston who played the Nikto, Vedain in Return of The Jedi and more recently the Imperial scientist Feyn Vann in Rogue One. I surprised him with the entirely out of context information that I know his daughter, Jackie Goddard through the You Are The Media community.

The latest event was successful in raising £4,848 for the dementia support charity, BUDS, of nearby Sandwell.

As a location, Redditch likely works well for drawing collectors from across the country (leaving at 8am it was only a 2hr 30m drive from the south coast for us). The midlands area has a Star Wars connection as well though, figures specifically. Coalville was home to the Palitoy factory where many of the vintage collectables on sale at Echo Base were made in the 70s and 80s.

In the previous edition of Collecting Star Wars, I wrote about author Brian Hickey’s book on the story of Palitoy’s Star Wars toys. Brian’s book is now fully funded via Kickstarter and he was at Echo Base to share prototypes of how the published copies will look.

Many of the other traders come to the event to showcase and sell their own Star Wars inspired creations. Here are some examples of those.

The original Star Wars figure line (and some colour variants) in micro scale. There’s even a display case available to make a small collection of these figures a piece of wall art.

A bit of collectors remorse for me on this Puffer Pig set from iB3D. I meant to pick it up, it was gone when I circled back around. What’s a Puffer Pig you ask? Well, there’s 75 episodes of the animated series Star Wars Rebels I’d encourage you to watch…

This beautiful case from Collector Displays is a perfect option for a complete collection of the Kenner vintage line.

‘Paleetoy’ make the playsets that Palitoy didn’t, in an homage to the vintage style so convincing you’d believe they were the originals. paleetoys.com

GW Acrylic are reputable provider of display cases for both Star Wars and other toy lines. This is their case for the Palitoy Death Star. gwacrylic.co.uk

A variety of custom moulded and painted pieces from across the Star Wars saga, including lots of Mandalorian items.

You’ll always find lots of original art on display at Echo Base. Again, the Mandalorian influence is popular with creators and collectors alike.

Another book documenting the vintage Star Wars era (available here). This tome details each figure produced between 1977 and 1985. Above the open pages is the Echo Base exclusive edition dust cover.

These custom lightsaber builds utilise authentic Lego. Buyers get all the pieces required plus a build guide. demonhunterbricks.co.uk

I had to buy this 3D printed Noti by MDC Customs from the Ahsoka TV series. Although it’s in the 6” scale and I collect 3.75” figures (a story for another time..), I was so impressed at how quickly this had been made. They’d only made their on screen debut a week earlier!

Droid Division produce and sell art files for 3D printing droids, astromechs and more, including these pit droids. Alas, we don’t have room for one, but we did buy one of their replicas of Jyn Erso’s stormtrooper doll from Rogue One (bottom left).