Nerdpocalypse Begins: San Diego Comic-Con 2012 Passes Sold Out

Let me tell you a story: in March 2006, hotel sales began for that year’s San Diego Comic-Con at noon eastern time. I logged into the sales Web site, picked a few likely hotels, went out to lunch, called Amanda to get her opinions on where we might like to stay, returned to the day job and attended an hour-long meeting, and booked the room at about 3 p.m. Flip ahead about two months, when I realized, “Huh… if we’re gonna actually do this, I should book a flight and get, you know, passes to the actual Goddamned convention…” and I logged in and got four-day passes without a hitch.

That was 2006, and our first SDCC. It is now 2012. Passes for this year’s SDCC went on sale yesterday at 11 a.m. eastern time. By 11:30 a.m., all four-day passes were sold out. By straight-up noon? Tough luck, Charlie; yer either in or yer out.

Well, that’s not entirely true; generally SDCC runs a second sale for passes that people have canceled for refunds, and professional and press registration hasn’t opened yet, so if you struck out yesterday, there’s still time to get a job with Marvel or to start a comics Web site (It’s easy, and it only causes a few massive ulcers!)… and if Amanda and I can get press creds, that might mean two four-day passes with Preview Night might go back into the pipeline… although having seen the line for picking up pro and press credentials, I’d almost rather eat the $150 for general passes. Or even $1,500.

And either way, there’s always a grift in the system. I’ve got a buddy who shows up year after year with no passes and a last-minute hotel booking who always seems to scrounge a pass at least for the Saturday movie panels at Hall H… but those loopholes don’t exactly get bigger every year. I’ve heard tell that a few years back, all you needed was a blog URL with some comics-related posts to get press credentials, but my buddy told me last year she needed to piggyback onto an actual television show to hook a pass.Within a few years, the only people issued press credentials will probably need to be either grandfathered in, or Brian Fucking Williams. Maybe. And God knows that simply fucking Brian Williams will probably not make the nut… at least not for anyone besides Brian Williams. But I digress.

Even hotel rooms are getting harder and harder to get a hold of. In years past, we were able to simply make a full-priced reservation at our hotel of choice, then book a reduced-rate room through the convention and purchase an upgrade at the front desk. Well, the bookings grew so feverish that the ability to upgrade fucked off about three years ago… and this year, we couldn’t even make a full-priced reservation ahead of time. Oh sure, we have a room booked… but to get the hotel we want, we’ll be hitting F5 on our browsers like everyone else, regardless of whether we’re booked as press or simply long-time attendees of the convention. Which means that if we don’t get lucky, our coverage of the convention might be reduced to: “Marvel made a major announcement today, but it’s hard to give a fuck, what with all the angry bedbug bites on my scrotum.”

All these Goddamned headaches, the anxiety and the simple animal cost beg the question: is attending SDCC even worth it? After all, it’s not like you can’t keep close track of what’s happening, between G4 TV’s live coverage of the event, half a million comics Web sites like this one attending and feverishly yammering about it, and simply by hitting refresh on the Twitter hashtag #sdcc for a stream-of-consciousness crowddump of observations, pictures and fatty-fat-fat jokes about Joe Quesada.

Well, all I can tell you is this: I hate traveling, and I don’t like hotels. And yet, last year, I set an alarm clock to wake me up in the middle of the Goddamned night – on what is ostensibly my vacation – to go stand in a half-mile long line for five hours to preregister and therefore be sure Amanda and I could attend this year’s convention. Between the spectacle, the events, the creators, and the wealth of art, items and collectibles that you literally cannot find anywhere else? There is nothing in the world for a comics fan like San Diego Comic-Con. I would literally pay almost any price, and bear any burden, to attend. I wouldn’t go to those lengths to visit my mom in the hospital… although I might go to those lengths in order to put people pushing strollers at SDCC in the hospital.

So if you didn’t get tickets, keep an eye on Comic-Con’s RSS feed for news on when additional tickets and hotel rooms go on sale. And if you can’t go, watch this space; we’ll bring as much of it as we can to you.

(via Comics Beat)