How To Survive Comic-Con Without Really Trying: 2013 Edition

We are in the final throes of preparation for heading to San Diego for Comic-Con 2013, which means we don’t have a lot of time today, but it does mean that we’re in the process of putting into place a bunch of the stuff that we’ve learned about how to survive what amounts to a six-day forced march through spectacle, excitement, a marked lack of easy-to-access Internet, crowded restaurants and line – dear God, the lines.

But as we did last year, we’ll share a few of the lessons that we’ve learned about how to survive the process. Now, since our time is limited today, I’m not gonna go back and read what I wrote back then, but simply vomit some stuff into the keyboard… which in and of itself will be good experience to prepare for a six-hour session of daydrinking in the sun at Dick’s Last Resort on 5th Avenue.

Rising Conflict: San Diego Comic-Con 2013 Saturday and Sunday Panel Schedules Released

San Diego Comic-Con is many things to many people: a giant excuse to get drunk in a setting where you can strike up a conversation about Batman with whoever happens to be sitting next to you at the bar, a chance to get pictures with celebrities, a way to get loot you can’t get anywhere else, or an excuse to dress up like a superhero and jam up floor traffic every time you strike some form of pose.

And it is true; SDCC is all of those things to some people But there is one thing that Comic-Con is to all people: a scheduling nightmare where, no matter what panel you think you might want to see, there is at least one panel opposite that panel that you equally want to see.

And SDCC 2013 is no different. The convention has released the panel schedule for Saturday and Sunday, and there is a veritable pile of cool and interesting panels to check out. And you can get the full Saturday and Sunday schedules at the Comic-Con Web site, but as we did with the Thursday and Friday schedules a couple of days ago, we’ll call out some that look interesting, some that we’re gonna try to get to and report on… and some that just seem… a little weird.

Decisions, Decisions: Thursday and Friday San Diego Comic-Con Panel Schedules Released

We are in the middle of a heat wave here in Boston; temperatures have been above 90 degrees outside with extremely high humidity… and until about 90 minutes ago, temperatures inside the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office were roughly the same. However, a nice man came out and said he needed to work with something called  “blower motor,” which, after ascertaining that he wasn’t using code to seek a favor other than money to Make Cool Air Engine Go, has begin to cut through the disgusting humid stew in which we have been living for almost 48 hours.

All in all, it has been enough to make a man seek out a different climate: one with cool breezes, next-to-no humidity, and where air conditioning is a nice bonus as opposed to being the only piece of technology separating humanity from regular frustrated stabbings.

Which is a long way to go to say that we are beginning to develop a powerful anticipation for this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, and that it has been good timing that they have begun to release their programming schedule over the past couple of days. Specifically, they have publicised the panels for Thursday an Friday, which you can find here for Thursday and here for Friday… although I’ll be commenting on some specific panels that look promising – or ridiculous – after the jump.

Finding Your Line: San Diego Comic-Con Releases Floor Map

The San Diego Comic-Con is coming up quick; it’s in about three weeks (which means I just had my fourteenth panic moment in a series of several hundred when I compulsively check my flight and hotel information to make sure I have the right dates), which means two things: we here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives are starting our annual trips out to research, test and collect equipment for reporting on the convention as quickly and comprehensively as a two-person operation can (particularly when the staff on the ground has a 100% incidence of problem drinking), and they information about the convention is beginning to drip out.

This means two things: we only have a few minutes today before we must head out on an appointment to irritate the shit out of some minimum wage drone at Best Buy (“How many finotles does this camera have? Two, eh? Yeah, can we speak to someone who knows that a finotle is not a thing?”), and that Comic-Con has released the map for the main convention floor.

And if you are attending the convention, you should go check the new map out; apparently they have moved some stuff around in the interest of relieving some floor traffic. The videogame exhibitors have been moved to pretty much the other side of the floor, and the art dealers have been moved even closer to Artists’ Alley. Which is probably a good move and should alleviate the horrible scrums of wretched humanity… right until the moment some top-heavy woman in a Power Girl costume strikes a pose for a photo, warping the orderly streams of timely travel more effectively than a TARDIS with a flamethrower.

You can check out the new map, and search for your target exhibitors here.

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.

150 Seconds of Pant-Crapping Terror: SDCC Hotel Registration Is Complete

Our apologies for the dearth of content today, but is has been a busy one here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office, between significant personal business, day job obligations… and, of course, the application for convention-priced hotel rooms at San Diego Comic-Con 2013, which occurred in a white heat starting at noon Eastern Time today.

Now, you can say what you want about the fact that, these days, you need to fill out an online form, list some favored hotels (this time, six. No more, no less)… and then wait for a few days to find out if you got what you wanted, what you were willing to settle for, or if you’ll be fighting for space in the men’s room stalls without the glory holes. And that’s after you have to wait for several hours after completing the online form just to get an email confirmation that they even received your application.

But I will say this: compared to the experience of reserving a convention room through Travel Planners, SDCC’s preferred booking agent or hotels, just five years ago, the current twitchy anticipation of waiting a few days to find out what you got is a small price to pay to avoid that tooth-shattering pure, animal rage that the process used to be.

Back in 2008, the Travel Planners site opened at noon on the appointed day… and promptly shit the bed like an infant on Seconal. It took me two and a half hours to get through to where I could actually purchase a room, and by then, well, I’m lucky that finances meant that we were looking for a hotel more than a mile away from downtown. That experience taught me: if you want to maximize your chances at attending SDCC, book a backup room that you can cancel later at a non-convention hotel within a month after the Comic-Con you just got back from… and no, I won’t tell you our backup hotel of choice. I know we’re a news site, but we’re not saps. Do your own damn legwork.

Compared to that pure hell, a little anticipation and apprehension is a small price today, because the process was surprisingly simple. During last year’s hotel reservation process, my browser chugged briefly when the site opened at noon, but I was able to get through the process in about three minutes… with a few minor complications.

So how was it this year?

One-Two Punch: SDCC Hotels On Sale 2/26

Now that was fast: just a few days after selling out passes to San Diego Comic-Con 2013, the convention has announced that hotels in the downtown area will be going on sale Tuesday, February 26th at noon Eastern Time. This is fully a month earlier on the calendar than last year, when there was almost a month in between when passes went on sale and the opening of hotel reservations. So I don’t know if the people at SDCC are hoping that forcing people to fork out for passes and a couple of days worth of hotels all at once will help deter the bubblegummers who aren’t really serious about attending Comic-Con… or if they’re treating the preliminaries like a Band-Aid: just rip the damn thing off all at once and just get the pain over with.

Well, whatever the reason, here’s the deal. At some point in the 72 hours before Magic Hour, SDCC will be sending an email with a link to the sales site to badge holders. The site won’t go live until noon Eastern Time on the dot, and when it does, once you get in, you will need to pick six hotels from the list: no more and no less. This is different from previous years, when you could pick one hotel or all of them. And it is certainly different from, say, 2006, when I read the list, thought it over, went to lunch, came back, thought it over some more, and then booked a room with no trouble at about 4 p.m.

Bodies On The Road To San Diego: SDCC 2013 Tickets Sell Out In About 90 Minutes

So, you thinking about going to San Diego Comic-Con this year? Yeah, well, you can stop. Because it’s sold out.

Tickets went on sale via a specific Comic-Con Web site that they only publicized to those with Comic-Con member IDs who were eligible to take part in the general sales – those who got tickets via the early sale open to those who attended SDCC 2012, for example, were unable to get in on this to maybe get tickets for friends, loved ones, or anyone they’d like to drive into a forced geek march for four to five days.

Now, as we tried to establish in our report on how we proceeded in the early sale back in August, it is best to approach any Web-based sales event related to Comic-Con as if you are attempting to use the Internet to complete a transaction required to ransom your child, and that you are doing it from a location prone to network outages, power failures, and pre-nuclear electromagnetic pulse attacks. Comic-Con makes it a point to learn lessons from where their online sales and registration procedures fall down each year and plug those holes… only to find brand new holes that need plugging the next year.

Long story short: not everyone can get tickets, and sometimes the system to sell the tickets that are available falls down.

The sales Web site opened at noon. And we soon started seeing Tweets expressing… shall we say, displeasure. Apparently the waiting room went into overflow within a minute or so, and, unlike prior years when people complained that the URL to the sales site was bad and the server threw rampant 500 errors, this time around, it was complaints that the waiting room didn’t refresh,

I’ve seen reports from the well-prepared that the waiting room “line” hit over 6,000 people within three minutes. As for the less prepared and / or lucky?

Well…

Digital Rioting: San Diego Comic-Con 2013 Tickets On Sale February 16th

As we speak, we are watching the Super Bowl, taking place at the Super Dome in New Orleans and packed with people who spent a great deal of money and endured extreme personal hardship to attend in person.

Those poor dupes are rank amateurs. As anyone who had ever tried to attend San Diego Comic-Con knows. And will soon relearn. Because the sales of passes to the general public for SDCC 2013 starts at noon Eastern Time on Saturday, February 16th…

…and if history is any guide, will be sold out by 2 p.m. on February 16th.

Playing With Adults: This Week’s Cosplay Riots

If you’re not old enough to have seen Star Wars in its original 1977 theatrical release, you are not a true Star Wars fan, and arguably not even truly a human being.

If the first time you saw Star Wars was on home video or, may God forbid, as a “Special Edition” DVD or Blu-Ray, you were not part of the original wave of excitement that occurred when the movie first broke, and therefore, are unworthy to call yourself a real fan. You were a kid who never had to live in a world where there was a Star Wars movie, but where there were no Star Wars toys. You never dealt with the crippling discomfort that came from pretending you were Luke Skywalker and getting a proto-boner over Princess Leia. The first time you saw Boba Fett was in a major motion picture, and not during a holiday special that made your sainted mother say, “With God himself as my witness, Diahann Carroll and Harvey Korman will die by my fucking hand. And if this program makes my eldest son say he wishes he had a Goddamned Lumpy Wookie… that’s it! Time for bed, you!”

My point is: to me, these experiences were integral to being a Star Wars fan. So when it comes to you little bastards whose Star Wars experience started with slapping in the VHS tape whenever you felt like it? You’re not real fans. Seriously: fuck you wretched, hipster poseurs.

So… anyone about ready to scroll to the comments and call me a shortsighted, ageist, elitist motherfucker yet? You ready to really rip into me and ask me how I dare to define your fandom based on my experiences?

Great! Now maybe we can all quit whoring around and whimpering about female cosplayers for a minute.