This year we attended SDCC as Attendees and not Press due to an error in our application that we made but tried to contact CCI regarding the problem to fix it but they never responded to emails sent. It's quite sad actually, that they couldn't be bothered to answer an email from us especially since we've been covering their shows for over 10 years. Therefore, we have extremely limited coverage of SDCC this year as you can tell from our social media accounts. We enjoyed SDCC without having to schedule out what we needed to cover every day but we still tried to do as much as we could.
Ok, let's get to Preview Night and the clueless staff sending us on a run around around the convention center trying to get into the line for the exhibit hall. We asked about 4-5 different staff members where the line to get into the exhibit hall and they would all point us to the wrong directions where every time it would lead you either back outside the convention center or back in the area to pick up your bag/lanyard etc...
We were with a group of friends and a few new comic con attendees. The first impression we got was disorganization from CCI staff and whoever else they hired to work during SDCC. After literally going in circles looking for the line, the veteran attendee in us went to work and found our way to the line which was pretty much empty.
Preview Night was the only day that they had this weird setup. It wasn't like the previous years. All the other days, you knew where you needed to go to line up etc... so there was no problem getting into the correct line.
A couple of us were lucky enough to get tickets to one of Conan's shows during SDCC and he had this funny segment from his Monologue called
LINECON which is pretty close to what SDCC is if you have never been there. Even the off-site events have LINES and the wait can be quite long as well! More on that later.
In the end, SDCC was great but they still had problems that needs to be fixed. Another thing is we don't understand how they can't get a system in place to do an online lottery for exclusives from Funko, LEGO etc... Obviously, it would cut down on the massive overnight lines and lines in general. There is already a lot of overcrowding in the walkways and areas behind the convention center.
Obviously, we were disappointed in CCI for not responding to our emails but they really need to figure out a better way to communicate with staff throughout the show on where lines should start and end etc... Another big thing they should work on is how to alleviate overnight lines. Why not do an online lottery ticketing system for certain popular exclusives or even Hall H Panels?
Anyways, here's some pictures below of some of things inside SDCC this year. Like we said not many pictures. We usually take a few couple thousand pics but this year we took significantly less.
