TheKuLife

I tried to buy tickets for this year’s Comic-Con but it was sold out immediately. With a turn of events and some luck, I managed to get some complementary tickets from an old high school friend Jeff. The original plan was to head down to San Diego on Wednesday evening and attend Comic-Con on Thursday-Saturday. However, I wasn’t able to get the actual tickets until early Thursday morning and it turned out that they were only single-day tickets. That put a dent into my plans but we made the best of it. Thursday morning was a bit hectic. Aside from the tickets, we couldn’t find parking at the original MTS (Metropolitan Transit System) stop. Thankfully, there were plenty at the next one. Wesley had issues redeeming his ticket because he had mistaken the “O” for a “0”. We figured it out right as we were walking in to pick up our badges. The process didn’t take long at all because they had a whole hall dedicated to badge pick-ups. We were done and ready before the doors opened at 9:30 am. With all the morning craziness out of the way, we made the most of the day.

Initial impressions…. I liked the MTS. It was easy and quick. I enjoy public transportation when they are efficient. There were a lot of people and not enough walkway, especially in the front of the convention center. It was difficult to navigate through the sea and stay on the sidewalks. There was a lack of clear instructions from the staff (somewhat expected). We received conflicting information as to where to go. The location is nice, right along the harbor. There’s plenty of food options in the walkable area.

Once the doors opened, we made our way inside. I headed straight for Mondo to buy some posters that I had my eyes on. Wes went elsewhere to check out a Megaman book. There was already a line when I got to Mondo. Some were hardcore fans and others were scalpers. I overheard that one guy had over 20 posters in his collection. Another bought a few during the previous preview night and are buying a few more today to resell in his store. You were limited to one poster purchase so I asked Wes to come back when he was done. Turns out that the book he was considering was already sold out for the day. With Wes’ help, I got the Pacific Rim (regular edition) by Kevin Tong and Aliens (regular edition) by Ken Taylor. Not sure if I’m going to keep the Aliens one.

We didn’t have a set course after and just wandered around. There were lines at every major booth and it was impossible to know what it was for. I went to Hasbro to buy the Magic The Gathering Planeswalker Set. Turns out that I needed to have a special ticket to enter the shop booth to purchase it. (The MSRP was $65 and it’s now going for $400+ on eBay.) Most of the popular exclusive items were sold out for the day already. There are groups of scalpers with giant bags filled with exclusives. There weren’t much cool SWAG. It was the typical stuff, product catalogs, pins, postcards, posters, etc. Somewhat disappointing. There weren’t too many cosplayers. Given that it was Thursday, I think most people probably just want to get their shopping done and save dressing up for Saturday.

There were a lot of toy figures on display. My favorite of which are from Hot Toys.

We took a break by attending the Halo panel. They raffled off some Surface Pro tablets, which was cool. They also gave us a ticket to redeem a special lanyard and pin at the Xbox Lounge so we headed over there. We demo-ed the Xbox One for a bit but I didn’t care much for it. We continued wandering around. We were pretty much done by mid afternoon. I guess it’s quick if you don’t spend hours waiting in line for exclusives and panels.

I went back on Saturday early afternoon with Jenn. We roamed the outside and do a quick walkaround on the inside.

Here’s a pirate that’s promoting the new Assassin’s Creed game.

We didn’t stay very long, just a few hours. Everything was pretty much the same except with a lot more people. I thought it would be shoulder to shoulder inside the convention but it wasn’t that bad. I saw more cosplayers but still less than what I had pictured.

Awesome Iron Man costume. Still planning on making one eventually.

Thoughts… Comic-Con was more of a social event than a convention. Everyone wanted to check it out, whether you’re into comics/anime/etc or not. If you are interested in the Comic-Con exclusives, you really have to do your research, have a game plan, and be prepared to wait in line. Even with all that, it’s hard to beat the professional scalpers. With that said, I do think the exclusives somewhat degrade the experience. In my eyes, the exclusives only benefit the scalpers. They’re the middlemen who horde the exclusives and resell them for double/triple the price. The original sellers loses out on profit and the fans have to pay an exorbitant amount. Getting rid of the exclusiveness by increasing the supply to meet the demand will eliminate the scalpers, shorten the line and lessen the crowd, and most importantly give the true fans the opportunity to purchase the items.