San Diego Comic-con 2013

[Ojam]

I'm planning on going to Comic-con next year. Anybody else planning on going? I've already booked a hotel in the Gaslamp Quarter, only a 12 minute walk from the convention center at 40% off (still $299 per night for 5 nights). Now I just need to hope that I can get the badges for the con and book a flight. I will book the flight after I get the badges. I've been reading as much as I can, and everything I read says to start planning early, so that is what I'm going. If I end up not being able to get badges my room can be cancelled up until July 3rd 2013. Once I hear what day badges go on sale for the general public I'm going to book that day off from work so that I can be home to buy tickets when they go on sale. I'm looking for get a 4 day plus preview night pass.

[odin88]

Int'l Comic-con: San Diego (SDCC) has already sold out of there 1st round of 5 day July, 2013 passes to those who registered online while at SDCC July/12. Don't bother taking 1 day off work in Feb/13 to try to get even 4 day passes once they go for sale online. That allotment always sells out online in the 1st 10 minutes. Fans who r able to make it thru online, run 2 computers at work: 1 for real work, the other frantically typing in to try to break thru the log jam of other collectors trying to order 4 day passes.
$100/night hotels r quite plentiful in Hotel Circle but u waste too much time on the shuttle bus getting downtown. If u have CAA car discount card, u can pre-book now at Best Western on the Bay (if they have not sold out for 2013) for about $110/night for a 2 bed room with breakfast. This is a cancellable rate in case u can't get even 3 separate invdividual day passes. They have SDCC shuttle to take u 13 blocks to SDCC.
If your local comic book retailer is not using their 2 Diamond Retailer passes, AND u r a loyal subscriber, this would be the easiest way to "borrow" their badges to get in. If u r a hi-roller collector, u can make special arrangements to pre-buy an extra SDCC vendor's badge from a specialty seller that has a booth inside that knows u well. The reason fans have to jump thru hoops to even attempt to buy badges is that 200k ppl want to get into SDCC, but the fire marshal has capped attendance at only 128k the last 4 years. That is 1 reason why they tried moving their sister Wondercon from San Fran to Anaheim, CA in April/12 to test the Anaheim convention ctr, city, transportation, hotels, airports, pubs, restaurants for moving the mega-SDCC there when SD convention centre is going to be renovated to double it's square footage: taller. Current 2 city blocks, 2 floors, baseball stadium for Zombie Walk, previous use of FULL-SIZE aircraft carrier flight deck to promote Stargate tv, use of surrounding 4 star hotel ballrooms, auditoriums, mega-hall H r just too "small."

[odin88]

U may be confused as to why some of the online reports say the fan was able to reserve their 4 day pass by noon of the online release day #1. This usually means they have been in a queue since 9:03 a.m. Pacific time, as the tix go on sale 9:00 a.m. Pacific. If u "accidentally" hit refresh due to waiting frustration, u could be knocked-out of the queue, and have NO chance of getting back in b4 sell-out.
U live on the East coast of Canada, that is why I would suggest u try Wizard comicon: Chicago/Rosemont in Aug/13. They have a good media list: Laura Vandervoort (Smallville's Supergirl), Dean Caine (tv Lois & Clark), Wm Shatner (Star Trek), Stan Lee (Marvel Entertainment), most of the Star Trek captains (Jean Luc Picard, Scott Bakula of Enterprise tv), retired or active WWE wrestlers, etc.

Wizard also offers over 200 comic, manga, animation artists or inkers, painters and lots of toy/graphic novel/comic vendors to meet. Hotels only average $100/night in Rosemont compared to the outrageous $300-400/night + taxes + tips for downtown San Diego, CA. All the condos, bed & breakfasts, house boats u can rent also go up to MAX price during SDCC week of festivities.
SDCC counts attendance different than other comicons. When SDCC pre-sells 100k of 4 day passes, they count this as 100k attendies. Most other large cons may advertise 80k attendies but this is accumulated at 20k/day x a 4 day comicon. SDCC in comparison would accumulate at 128k fans/day x 5 days (including bonus Preview Night Wed.), or 640k ppl. That is why ppl line up overnight, bring their sleeping bags, & sleep in front of Hall H (which holds 6,500 fans including 50 year olds that work in the Canadian or USA entertainment/digital field) just to be first in line to see the media guests. e.g. Marvel movie director, actors, actresses, writers, Twilight movie stars, DC/Warner Bros. promos, Lionsgate Hunger Games trilogy, hot, new tv series, Game of Thrones, Hobbit movie, etc.)