G4 Network covers SanDiego Comic Con

[johnmiic]

Did anyone catch this even on the G4 network this past weekend? Even SciFi channel doesn't cover the Comic Con's.

G4, ( mostly a gamer's tv network on cable tv), had near total coverage of the event. Primarily interviews, ( trailers were not shown to the TV audience at home), but still pretty good coverage.

[kingdom warrior]

I posted the same topic in the comic book forum......I thought it was way too overboard and focused too much on Movies. Would have liked to have seen Interviews with comic book guys....and seen more coverage of the floor Seems ever flyby night up coming comic book company is trying to get their books made into movies.....My thought was how about making good comics first and that will eventually take care of itself. Tired of New companies trying to get movie deals based on a four issue mini series.

[Bizarro Amy]

I posted the same topic in the comic book forum......I thought it was way too overboard and focused too much on Movies. Would have liked to have seen Interviews with comic book guys...

Sadly, that's pretty much what the entire convention was focused on. It was more of a media convention than a comic book convention. I just got back from San Diego, and unless they scale it back, I will never attend Comicon International again. There were so many people there to see the movie and TV stuff, that you couldn't get through the crowds to see the comic-related events. All of the movies (some were full-length and some were just previews) were intentionally over-booked to make sure there would be a full house. I was only able to get into 2 panels the entire weekend, because the lines were so long.

[kingdom warrior]

That's Bad Del sorry to hear that.... The New York Comic Con is the same...Just one big Media event.That's why I like smaller shows I like the Big Apple con and the one in Jersey forgot the name of that one. Smaller shows you get the Celebrities plus you get to meet and talk with the Artist there's not like a million people there.I get to scan the floor and see what deals i can get. Plus if you get there early enough you can have conversations with many celebs many of them are friendly and get a kick out of the Fans.

I think these bigger shows kinda lose that.Plus I go to the shows always hunting for Megos in the wild and the Last two shows I went to I was able to get a few....when i went to NYCC I came away empty handed..arrgggghh!

[grayhank]

It's not really a "comic book" convention but more of a "Pop Culture" convention. This was Comic Con's 38th year and it may have started out as a simple comic book convention but it has amassed considerable since then. Every year it gets bigger, sometimes better in some areas and worse in others. But I don't think that scaling it down would be beneficial to the 30,000+ attendees.

From what I saw, it seemed that the organizers deliberately sold less admissions for Saturday because that's the day that it is normally so packed that you can barely move around in there. Sunday however was another story altogether. That day seemed to pick up the crowd when Saturday was sold out. So it's possible that maybe ComicCon should actually limit the amount of admissions for the entire event for all days.

There is plenty of unused space in that convention center where maybe they should also spread things out a little more. Put all the dealers on the first floor, move the aspiring artists, gaming tables or independant companies to the second floor or whatnot. Have another section just for the exclusives. But for some reason they want to cram everything into the main room.

Something really needs to be done about the way getting exclusives is handled. Hasbro and Mattel especially need to either offer their exclusives for online pre-purchase (like Sideshow and a few other companies do) or come up with some other way to keep the people congestion down. Telling people to come to their booths at 10:00am and 2:00pm to get a ticket to enter the line to buy exclusives seems to cause more problems than anything else. Then they have the gall to get angry when there are 5000 people surrounding their booths to try to get tickets all at the same time. Then there's the ComicCon Security people who are screaming and yelling at the fans to keep moving and not stop to try to get these tickets because it's a fire hazard. Hasbro had 10 different exclusives they were offering. Seems to me that they should have had 10 different lines in one of the unused halls to sell this stuff.

It's no wonder that attendees come away from that place with such negativity. It truly is an organizational issue but apparently the Comic Con organizers consist of a bunch of stupid wookiees.

[Bizarro Amy]

I talked to a guy at one of the panels, and he said that he's been to the past several San Diego Comicons, and that they have gotten progressively worse. One of the big things I didn't understand was the line for those who had pre-registered. They encouraged everyone to buy passes in advance, reportedly to save the attendee a lot of waiting in line. They also made a big deal of making sure you had your printed-out confirmation with the bar code, because they had to scan it in order to give you a ticket. But despite the fact that we had purchased a pass for the entire event, we still had to wait 2 hours in the hot sun to get in. What's funny, is that they didn't scan in the barcodes at all. They typed them into a computer and printed out a pass. I don't understand why they couldn't have just sent me the pass in the mail OR allowed me to print my own directly from the Net. It seems like the organizers were determined that everyone had to wait in line, to get a ticket to wait in yet another line....that seemed to be a recurring theme throughout the event.

[grayhank]

Thier system of how to pick up your badge has changed multiple times in the past several years. They used to mail the badges in advance and you would have to pick up your badge holder. Then they changed it to have you just bring your pre-register receipt and they would hand you a badge, it changed again to where you bring your receipt and you type your name on a computer and print out your own badge. Now it's the barcode thing (they did in fact scan my barcode so I don't know what happened with yours Del). It seems they are always trying something new because nothing ever seems to work.

As for the line once you have picked up your badge, well the con opens at 6:00 pm for preview night. You can pick up your badge starting at 3:00pm. Most people pick up their badge then go wait in line for 6:00pm. Others will leave entirely until 6:00pm. One of the things that most don't realize is that once you pick up your badge you pretty much can wait anywhere you want to. You don't have to be out in the sun, you can either go inside upstairs where there are lines for those who picked up their badge early or you can go back downstairs and wait inside the lobby for the downstairs doors to open. Most of the people doing crowd control are volunteers and they don't always know what's going on throughout all that pandamonium. Just move to a different area if you get to one that is making you wait outside or whatever. Or do what I do and just go get your badge about an hour before it opens then leave to go eat or something. By the time you get back the doors are opened and you won't have to wait in line to get in and you won't have missed much.