By now there is no doubt that today’s general sale of comic-con tickets is selling out at speeds that have become the norm just a year ago, and with the waiting room full to the brink of despair there are a lot of grumpy fans out there mad that they might not get any tickets to the show at all, let alone the much coveted four day pass with preview night.
But the end of the world isn’t brought about by this. Much like adolescents struggling with school yard bullies, this too gets better. There are a plethora of other ways to enjoy the convention than by pushing your way through the masses in hope of seeing X, purchasing Y, or asking questions to Z.
The offsite events have gotten off the f-ing chain these last few years. Nerd HQ is always having panels and events that you can buy tickets to secure your seat at (I’m pretty sure they sell alcohol there too). Last year Yahoo had a huge presence with their interactive off-site room, as did IGN, Xbox, Wired, CNet, and BioWare. These events often feature video games that can be demoed or goodies that are given away too.
Warner Brothers made a giant spectacle of their off-site presence with a huge stage for panels, and even a Batmobile museum featuring the vehicles from the Batman films.
But what was that? Going to San Diego is pointless without a pass? Fret not, there are a number of news and official websites that cover panels live from the con that you can experience from the comfort of your undies without being judged. Sure they cut out a lot of the good stuff like preview footage and trailers, but I’m sure there are still one or two people bootlegging that stuff and sending it straight to YouTube despite the big hulking studio hired security guards lurking about for such copyright infringement.
Xbox Live even offers some con coverage but it is in the form of clips and such. And since G4 is dead and gone the last televised bastion for the con is hopefully Spike TV.
But what about all of those exclusives and SWAG you say? The internet is not just for porn and cheating on history pages, you know? Plenty of retailers offer their exclusives for retail price online after the con is over. Mattel is notorious for making a spectacle out of it while Hasbro just randomly throws a number of their non-exclusives exclusives (crazy, right?) onto their online shop without any warning. The DC Collectibles exclusives could be purchased through Graphitti Designs’ webstore as well.
But there is also eBay if you are a rapper and money aint a thang. But if that is the case then you’d be at Comic-Con anyway, right?
Like I said before, it gets better! And just like all of my fellow Philadelphia Eagles fans have been brought up to believe, there is always next year.
EDIT: This is just my cheeky way of looking at things but the info here is legit. There is a slight glimmer of hope in securing badges if today you did not succeed, and that is in the form of the resale day where CCI allows a limited number of returned or cancelled badges to go up for sale to the general public. While there is no guarantee that this will happen, historically it is something that has happened over the years.
I personally hope everyone gets the passes that they want as this is something that all fans should be able to experience if they can afford to go.
