Last Chance Pass: Single-Day Tickets For San Diego Comic-Con 2013 Going Up For Sale

Yesterday, we here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office were out celebrating a birthday – not that I could testify in court that that’s actually what happened, except for the evidence of the calendar and the credit card slip reading only “Jagermeister” with a ridiculous number of digits next to it – so several emails we received went unnoticed until this morning, when I caught up on our correspondence to distract myself from praying for a merciful and quick death to stop the relentless thrumming in my head.

Which is a shame, because one of those emails was definitely noteworthy, at least to those people desperately praying for some ray of hope that they could find a way to attend this year’s San Diego Comic-Con next month.

Well, that ray of hope has blinked on: Comic-Con International has announced that several thousand people have returned a variety of single-day passes for this year’s convention, and that they have yanked some previously-reserved badges held for some professional departments… and that they will be holding a lottery for those laminates that you can be a part of.

You know, provided you meet a certain limited set of conditions.

Comic-Con International’s complete message and instructions are after the jump.

Comic-Con International is pleased to announce that because of returned/cancelled badges we will once again be able to offer those badges for resale. This year we have also reduced the allotment of reserved badges for certain departments. Comic-Con has decided to add these badges to the resale for our attendees. We currently have several thousand single day badges available for resale, only 3,100 of which are Saturday badges. 4-Day badges are sold out.

Due to the very limited number of badges available and our vendor EPIC Registration being focused on coordinating onsite registration, the Comic-Con 2013 badge resale will be conducted utilizing a random drawing.

To enter the Comic-Con 2013 Resale Drawing, login to your Member ID account now and click the blue notice that says “Click Here to Enter a Drawing to be Eligible for the Comic-Con 2013 Badge Resale!”

The drawing entry period will remain open for 48 hours only, and will close June 12, 2013 at 10:59:59 AM Pacific Daylight Time (PDT). Late entries will not be accepted.

You must have a valid and confirmed Comic-Con Member ID to enter the drawing. Anyone who has already registered for or purchased a 4-Day badge (with or without Preview Night) or a single day Saturday badge will not be eligible to enter the drawing.

Those selected to participate in the Comic-Con 2013 badge resale may purchase their own badges, as well as badges for one additional guest. You may purchase for any guest who has a confirmed Member ID (as of June 7, 2013) and does not have a 4-Day badge (with or without Preview Night) or a single day Saturday badge. Your guest does not need to be selected from the drawing pool to be eligible to purchase.

Comic-Con will notify everyone who is selected to participate by email on or before June 17, 2013.

So while this sounds like the potential Holy Grail for fans who were frozen out of getting tickets for this year’s SDCC, the first limitation here is that you need to be a fan who was frozen out; you can’t enter if you don’t already have a Comic-Con Member ID, and you can’t get a new Comic-Con Member ID until this sale is over (they’ve deactivated the link to get a new ID on their Web site). So if you’re a San Diego native or someone who will be in town for other reasons, and you just idly want to try to get a pass? This isn’t gonna be the way you’re gonna make that happen.

Further, nothing about this sale covers the availability of hotel rooms, which were snapped up and generally held four months ago. While I have always had good luck booking rooms through the convention (knocking wood for 2014, which yes, I am already starting to worry about – welcome to the SDCC experience!), and therefore have never had to worry too much about alternatives, I am told that it is possible to book rooms at the last minute outside of the downtown area and off of the convention shuttle route, which makes a last-minute trip theoretically doable if you have, or can rent, a car.

What this drawing is perfect for is groups of people who will be attending SDCC, but were only able to get scattershot, incomplete mixes of single-day passes for their trip. If that sounds like you, everyone in your group can apply for the lottery, and if you win, everyone in your group can buy passes for anyone in your group to fill in the empty days – you can buy for yourself, yourself and one other person with a member ID, or just for someone else with a member ID… provided everyone in that mix has a valid Member ID and doesn’t already has a four-day pass or a four-day pass with Preview Night. Which means that Amanda and I can’t help you out on this sale; you (or you and someone else you know with a member ID and no full-ride passes) will just have to go to Comic-Con International’s Web site within the next 30 or so hours, log into your member account, and take your chances.

Where we can help you out is with our coverage; just like last year, we will be covering all four days of SDCC, plus Preview Night, including as many photos and videos and we can force down our FTP server’s throat, like so many shots of Jager.

Actually, that’s a terrible analogy. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go shave my tongue.