Lines Online: SDCC 2013 Passes For Previous Attendees On Sale Saturday

Update, 4:20 p.m. According to CCI, passes with Preview Night will, in fact, be available when they go on sale this Saturday:

Hi Rob,

Yes, 4 Day badges with Preview Night will be available. For badge pricing information, please use the following link: http://comic-con.org/cci/cci_reg.php

Thank you.

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As I intimated last night (But was frankly too drunk to elaborate on at the time), the word has gone out that advance sales for passes to San Diego Comic-Con 2013 for people who purchased passes for this year’s SDCC will go on sale online Saturday, August 4th, at 8 a.m. Pacific Time.

Here’s the deal: if you had an actual purchased pass for SDCC 2012 – press, pros and exhibitors need not apply – you’re eligible for the advance sale (You can find out if you can be in on the action here, using your SDCC 2012 member ID).

According to the preregistration FAQ page, people preregistering will be able to buy a four-day pass, or any combination of single-day passes. It does not, however, say that you will be able to buy a four day pass that includes Preview Night. I’m not sure if this is an accidental omission or if Preview Night is simply off the table for this round of preregistration; I have contacted Comic-Con International for clarification and will update when I hear back, but it is 3 a.m. over there and I have already acknowledged that, as a journalist, I am sometimes too drunk to handle breaking news, so we will see what happens.

In addition, if you’re hoping to leverage your attendance this year into buying an assload of badges for your buddies to go next year? You’re out of luck; people preregistering on Saturday will only be able to purchase badges for themselves and up to three people who also had purchased badges for SDCC 2012. And you will need those three people’s member IDs to make those purchases go through; name, address, rank, serial number and preferred sexual position won’t make the nut. So collect those member IDs, and when the magic hour comes, the Golden Tickets will be available here.

If you don’t manage to get passes through this round, fear not, because the normal online packet storm that is general registration will occur sometime early next year. Or, if everything fails, you can start yourself a comics Website and try to wrangle some press credentials – I’m living proof that any dingbat can do it.

On a personal note, while I am glad that CCI is making passes available early for those of us who attended this year, I’m kinda bummed that they didn’t have any on-site sales for passes at this year’s SDCC. I’ve heard they decided to scuttle on-site sales because people were spending a day of their convention standing in line for the following year’s con, but really? That was my choice to make in 2011. Sure, getting up at 4:30 a.m. after barely getting over the jet lag sucked, and spending four and a half hours in a line with no cell service kinda blew, but I met some really cool people in the line – we developed the kind of wartime bond one usually only gets in a foxhole, or the line for Hall H – and I was on the floor, knowing 2012 was all set, by 9:30 a.m.  Sure, it was nice to just enjoy the con without an extra line to deal with, but SDCC 2012 was the first one in five years I left without knowing for sure that I would be able to return the following year, and that kinda sucked for me.

However, I’ve gotta say that the details of this round of preregistration feel right and fair to me. By limiting sales to only those who attended this year, and by possibly making it so that Preview Night is off the table for this round, it might keep the numbers low enough to give a real chance for those of us who plan our years around SDCC (I have already requested that week off in 2013 at the day job) to get things wrapped up early so we can relax. At the very least, it should keep the numbers low enough to prevent a catastrophic server crash (furiously knocking wood here).

So Amanda and I will be online at 11 a.m. Eastern Time on Saturday, in different locations, communicating by Skype to plan our online attack. It will be like planning a tactical military operation… but then again, what part of attending San Diego Comic-Con isn’t like that these days?