san deigo comic con 2014?

[Faylee]

i'm going to (try) to go to comic con this year and i haven't gone before so i need some help. first, whats the difference of badges and tickets? second, how do panels work? and if you (can) buy a day pass do you still have to have different tickets/badges for each panel you want to go to? third, how do meet and greets/autograph signings work? and lastly, what are the best hotels to stay in around the area? preferably someplace close enough you could take a taxi to comic con and an airport and under $150 a night?

[Angela]

I'm going to try and answer this the easiest way, and not confuse you haha.

1. Badges ARE tickets. Just instead of a ticket you get a fancy badge and a free lanyard (usually from showtime) to hang around your neck. This badge has a bar-code that has all your information (name, full address, etc) for when people have contests in their booth. They'll scan this rather than have you fill out a long piece of paper. Plus its a good keepsake!!!

2. Panels. They aren't that confusing. For whatever days you get, you're kind of playing a guessing game. You can look at past SDCC's to see which panels appeared on which day, and see if there is a pattern, but you won't know for certain until a week or two before the convention, when they release the full schedule. It's a first come, first serve basis, which is why you always hear about people lining up (Mostly Hall H) just for the next day. Think about it this way: The bigger the Fandom (The Walking Dead, Doctor Who, Sherlock, Adventure Time) the bigger the room and/or longer the line (Adventure Time was in a smaller room but large line) and the earlier the people will show up. Doctor Who started at 8pm the DAY before its panel. Best part though: Once you're in, you're in. This means they DO NOT clear people out between panels. So sometimes you get campers. That's okay, you can do it too. Each panel you can get a bathroom pass (use a buddy system if you don't want to lose your seats and leave someone behind) and leave and instantly get to come back, however YOU HAVE TO DO THIS WITHIN YOUR CURRENT PANEL. You can't leave one and come back during another one.

3. Panels/Badges: All you need is your badge. (Unless you want to attend the personal NERD HQ "panels" which then you purchase these through Nerd HQ)

4. Meet and Greet/Autographs- Depending on who you want this can be the most frustrating. Sometimes you can catch the random person doing an autograph session at a random booth (just follow their twitter, sometimes they'll tweet it) and you'll have to pay have something they approve signed. EX: John Barrowman (Torchwood and Doctor Who- Captain Jack) was as a booth signing his Torchwood Book/Memorabilia that you had to buy at that booth. I bought the book, and my sister in law bought something else. He talked to us for a bit, and of course made us laugh the whole time. However- The bad example: Doctor Who- We stood in line for about 4 hours outside to get towards the tail of the line, eventually got wormed into the convention center to draw tickets, and if your tickets had a time on the back, you got to go meet and greet/sign them. We did not get one. ={ Same happened with Supernatural. It's all a guessing game. I say do your best at getting their as early as possible to find out where lines are. There was an autograph schedule we had to hunt down, or it could have been in the SDCC book they give you. I can't remember

5. Hotels. $150 a night... Your best chance will be in Mission Valley (its an area) and going through the Comic Con service to buy said hotels in that area. None are really lower than $150 a night, though I'd hop on google maps, find ones, and start making notes. The ones Comic Con provides get shuttles to and from the convention center 24 hours, but if you don't pick on of those you'll have to find your own way there.

Personally I did a homeaway.com booking, I found a 4 sleeper apartment near downtown for 1250 for a little over a week, and tacked on an extra room for only $200 and then marketed the other room to other SDCC goers for more. (profit I know, but not much more. It was pretty cheap considering) and made a friend in the process. This was out of the way, but we drove in from Texas so we had our own car.