Comic Con International: San Diego is right around the corner! Do you have your costumes ready? Do you already have your hotel & flight booked? If this is your first time going this year, then you have come to the right blog! After having attended Comic Con for the first time last year, I have plenty of advice and tips to make your experience a lot more smooth and enjoyable! If you don’t have tickets, but you are interested in attending Comic Con 2017, feel free to read my previous blog entry which talks about the process of obtaining tickets: Comic-Con International: San Diego, Ca
If you’re reading this, you are probably one of the few lucky ones in the world who were selected to purchase Comic Con tickets! Congratulations! If you have not already booked your flight & hotel, all I can say is good luck because hotel prices will go anywhere ranging from +$300 per night and up and that’s considered the cheaper end. Even hostels that just simply provide you a bed to sleep in will charge at least $200 per night. Even the hotels that are located on the opposite side of town will jack up their prices, and I am speaking from experience. The first time around, we stayed at Ocean Beach Hotel simply because we could not find any hotels nearby the Convention Center. Most were sold out or extremely expensive. Ocean Beach Hotel was nice since it was across the street from Ocean Beach. I mean, who doesn’t love having the ocean down the street within walking distance? However, staying at Ocean Beach Hotel did require us to have to drive to the Convention Center and pay for parking due to the distance. Oh, and believe me when I say that the city of San Diego takes full advantage of raising the prices for everything during this time!
Comic Con in San Diego, Ca usually takes place in the month of July and when it comes to California weather, the chances of it being super hot is high. Mix that with being in a crowd of people entering and exiting the Convention Center with barely any room between each other. You can say bye bye to your personal space because that does not exist. If you don’t like big crowds or if you’re claustrophobic, this might not be the event for you. At times, you could not see ahead of you except for the person in front of you.
If you were not mailed your Comic Con badge, make sure you remember to bring your photo ID with you to pick up your badges. You will receive a couple goodies such as a comic bag/backpack, Comic Con event booklet, etc. We went to pick up our Comic Con badges which was on the 2nd floor of the building. This floor also had art galleries, people waiting in lines for celebrity autographs & photos. Don’t forget to grab the program for the day! This will come in handy when you want to find out what is going on inside the specific rooms/halls.
As far as autographs & pictures go, make sure you find out if the celebrity is charging you money for those services because you do not want to wait in line forever just to find out that the celebrity is charging you +$50 just for a picture & autograph. What?!? Ain’t nobody got time or money fo that!
The second floor also has a lot of rooms that hold panels that talk about everything to do with comics, anime, Star Trek, Star Wars, new movies, old movies, process of creating comics and everything that is nerdy! Depending on how popular the subject is and who is showing up for the panel, a room may be filled and you will have to wait in a long line until a seat becomes available to sit in. Make sure you ask the employee at the door if there is a line for the panel because one time, we were about to walk in and the employee said that the end of the line is all the way around the hall. Alrighty then, I guess I don’t want to see that panel so badly after all! The second floor also has rooms where they play previews and trailers for new movies and shows that are coming soon as well as Japanese anime shows.
Okay, enough about the 2nd floor. What exactly is going on with the first floor? Well, let me show you.
The first floor is absolutely busy since all the exhibits, games, items that are being sold, celebrities, and basically everything exciting happens there.
Speaking of posters, if you’re a big poster person, make sure you bring a poster tube to carry with you to protect them. There are plenty of poster opportunities if you have the patience to wait in line for one.
As packed as it is on the first floor, it is well worth visiting!
As much fun as it is to pose and take pictures with others who are dressed up as well, be careful though! Some will request a “tip” from you. So, before you ask someone to take a picture with you, find that out first! If you are dressed up in a costume, do not be surprised if random people are snapping pictures of you or want to take pictures with you. Get used to it!
This is the floor where you can purchase comic books, but make sure you look at the other tables and check out their prices before purchasing. Sometimes you can get items a lot cheaper at a table over. So, browse before you purchase!
Some of you guys are probably thinking, umm… these games are already out. How is this testing out a “new” game? Remember, this was from Comic Con 2015 when the games were not out yet.
All this walking around and dealing with crowds can be exhausting. Now where can I get some food and find a place to sit? There are food stands inside the building as well as outside of the building on the back side. Of course, you will have to pay movie theater prices for just a damn hot dog and water, but food is food. Honestly, seats are hard to come by even when you’re eating outside. It is basically you fend for yourself. You have to be aggressive and ask to sit with strangers at a table or you see an empty chair and you quickly sit on it. As far as the inside goes, none of the hallways have chairs or any seating for you to rest on. In fact, there are multiple signs around stating that you are not allowed to stand or sit there against the walls in certain areas. Oh, and trust me, they do enforce that rule. So, if you were thinking about wearing that sexy skin-tight costume with the high heels, good luck with that! In addition, you will feel like you are going through menopause while experiencing Comic Con. At times, you will be super cold inside the rooms, and then during other times, you will want to rip your clothes off because it is so hot. All I can recommend is wear layers so you can take off clothing if it gets hot and wear comfortable shoes if you plan on staying there for hours. If you truly need to sit down on a chair, I recommend going into a room that has anime playing and sit in one of their chairs. You can even take a nap in there since the lights have been turned off while the shows/movies are playing. Apparently, there aren’t too many anime fans hence the empty seats, and I mean a lot of empty seats. Worse case scenario, I have seen people with small tailgating chairs with shoulder straps walking around. While that is a very smart idea, I think it is best to travel light though.
I don’t recommend bringing infants, toddlers, or small children to the event because I have witnessed fussy kids wanting to leave due to the long waits and crying. I think Comic Con would be okay for +9 years old.
Now let’s talk about Hall H, the most talked about hall that holds all of the most popular celebrity panels. I have yet to experience Hall H, but from what I hear, it is an all-day affair if you wait. Also waiting does not guarantee that you will make it into Hall H. You see, there are only certain number of seats inside this hall and once the seats are all filled up, you will have to wait in line until someone gets up to leave allowing you to sit in that empty chair. The panels of celebrities go in and out of the room, but if the audience inside the room chooses to stay, then they can stay there for hours and hours while you wait in line desperately trying to get in. You can risk spending your whole day waiting in line and never step foot inside Hall H.
Comic Con is so popular that there are more people who would like to attend versus the Convention Center having enough room to house these people. It’s either you move the event to a different location that can hold enough people or you do what San Diego did for 2015, and that is have more rooms and exhibits in a whole separate building outside of the Convention Center. Don’t forget to check those buildings out as well.
If you are hoping to purchase Comic Con souvenirs or anything that states “Comic Con” on it at the actual event, guess what? Don’t go looking for it because there is none. Comic Con t-shirts can be purchased ahead of time online and be picked up in person at the event. The sales of the shirts are also limited as well.
Eating in the area can be fun. You can be eating dinner sitting next to Thor or Chun-Li if you have the patience to wait around because the wait time to get a table can be long as you can tell!
Obviously, I could not possibly show you everything that happens in those Comic Con rooms or halls. Even the pictures don’t do the event justice. It is really something that you must go and experience in person if you have the chance.
No Comments