How Star Wars’ fan community was born 🌌 Dan Madsen of the Star Wars Fan Club
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Episode at a glance:
GUEST: Dan Madsen
COMMUNITY: The Star Wars Fan Club
HOSTS: Bailey Richardson & Kevin Huynh
Show Notes
In 1999, two weeks before The Phantom Menace released to rabid Star Wars fans around the world, Denver, Colorado welcomed 20,000 people to attend Star Wars Celebration I.
Dan Madsen getting ready for Celebration I to start.
Fans dressed up for Star Wars Celebration I. Photo by Robert Deslongchamps, courtesy of Dan Madsen.
Dan Madsen was the secret sauce behind that Celebration. After a fan zine he created as a Denver 15 year old was noticed by George Lucas himself, Lucasfilm asked Dan to help them. He was tasked with “[keeping] Star Wars in front of people. I had to keep it alive and vibrant, keep the excitement up,” Dan told us, and man did he nail it.
Dan took over the Star Wars Insider magazine, growing it to 500,000 subscribers at its peak. Eventually he also took the reins of the official Star Wars Fan Club (growing it to 180,000 members), a $20 million collectibles business and, of course, the very first Star Wars Celebration.
How did Dan build such a thriving fan community? We called him in Denver to find out.
Three Takeaways from Dan
1. Community leaders must be genuine and qualified.
When you’re looking for leaders to take on big responsibilities, make sure that they’re sincerely passionate and have the qualities and experience they’ll need to succeed in their role. The Lucasfilm team chose well when they pulled Dan from the crowd to help them cultivate their fan community. As Dan recalled, “They looked at me and said, ‘You have the right amount of professionalism mixed with the right amount of fanaticism.’”
2. Vibrant communities can drive growing businesses
If what you’re creating with your members is valuable, people will pay for it. At its peak, Dan was leading a $20 million business with the Fan Club. He had multiple revenue streams from the officially licensed collectible sales, magazine subscribers, to Celebration tickets.
3. Celebrations are motivators for a community.
The energy of one Star Wars superfan like Dan is impressive. Two is powerful. But tens of thousands of them in full force at a Celebration could fuel a manned mission to Mars. Because of the kind of enthusiasm they inspire, celebrations revitalize community members. The very first Star Wars Celebration that Dan put on did just that — supercharging fans two weeks before the release of Phantom Menace, the first new Star Wars film in over 16 years.
👋🏻Say hi to Dan and Learn more about the Star Wars Fan Club.
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