San Diego Comic-Con 2010: What are they thinking?!
Jan
an excellent entertainment, well run. But, c'mon now...
They've already sold out of all 4-day passes (in November!) and they put one-day
passes on sale this week and Saturday is already sold out. And how many guests
have they announced so far? Nineteen.
I don't know what they're thinking except perhaps to add pressure for fans to
attend their other shows but I don't think much of this latest way of doing
things at all.
Jan
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Charlie E.
>Yeah, I know that SDCC is huge. I like it a lot and there's no doubt that it's
>an excellent entertainment, well run. But, c'mon now...
>
>They've already sold out of all 4-day passes (in November!) and they put one-day
>passes on sale this week and Saturday is already sold out. And how many guests
>have they announced so far? Nineteen.
>
>I don't know what they're thinking except perhaps to add pressure for fans to
>attend their other shows but I don't think much of this latest way of doing
>things at all.
>
>Jan
They just opened the one day passes on Tuesday, so they started
selling out really fast. I still have a bad feeling about this. Are
they really put up ALL the tickets, and they have already sold out? Or
are they only selling part of the tickets now, and will have the rest
available later? Can you imagine Warner's finding out that they can't
send their folks to SDCC because they are all sold out?
Charlie
Jan
I think that that's probably a different form of registration, though I don't
know for sure. WB and the like would be exhibitors, wouldn't they?
As for selling everything, I don't see any indication that they're not selling
out completely. Last year they did hold some auctions for memberships of
various types just before the show that I figured were refunded memberships.
Guess I'm just not a dedicated enough con-goer. I want to at least see a
sampling of guests before I book airfare across the country. Especially for
something over half a year away. What's next? They'll start selling 2011
memberships as soon as 2010 sells out?
Amy Guskin
(in article <hgijl...@drn.newsguy.com>):
What I don't understand is why you're blaming Comic-Con that the tickets are
selling out. I thought maybe I was missing some key detail, like they were
holding back big blocks of tickets arbitrarily. Is that it?
Amy
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Charlie E.
Hi Amy,
That is the real question. Now, it could be that 100,000 people were
just wating for them to put them on line, and bought them up
immediately. However, knowing people, it amazes me that THAT many of
them had their acts together to purchase something like this early...
;-)
Charlie
Blair Leatherwood
If it's selling out that fast with a minimum of announced guests (and
these probably aren't the big guns--I haven't looked), I'm thinking that
the con has reached the point where it's no longer a place to go see but
a place to be seen.
Some of what I've read recently indicates SDCC has already passed that
point.
Blair
Carl Dershem
> Yeah, I know that SDCC is huge. I like it a lot and there's no doubt
> that it's an excellent entertainment, well run. But, c'mon now...
>
> They've already sold out of all 4-day passes (in November!) and they
> put one-day passes on sale this week and Saturday is already sold out.
> And how many guests have they announced so far? Nineteen.
>
> I don't know what they're thinking except perhaps to add pressure for
> fans to attend their other shows but I don't think much of this latest
> way of doing things at all.
>
> Jan
What WHO is thinking? Like they have put pressure on people to buy
early?
This is not a conspiracy - it's just hgh sales volume, coupled with
(relatively) limited floor space.
For those of us who have been going to Comic-Con for 40 years, it really
isn't a shock. A bit of a surprise to see how fast it sold out this
year, but not really a shock. 3 years ago, we hit capacity on Saturday.
last year, it was sold out a month before the con. This year, sold out
early (very early).
But the con organizers had nothing to do with that - just the attendees.
The hall has the same capacity.
cd
--
My life is an open book, and I want a re-write!
Jan
Guskin says...
Maybe I'm mistaken but I just don't recall tickets being available *at all* at
this point. I know that people could buy next year's memberships at the current
year's con but then I was under the impression that there were no sales again
until not long before the hotel reservation lines opened up in the spring.
Certainly after the new year, anyway.
Blaming them for the fact that people are buying tickets, no, of course not. It
would seem that any incentive that SDCC has to increase interest by having
really high-quality guests is diminished, though. Why should they care if they
know they'll be sold out anyway? But, then, I guess that point was reached at
least a few years ago anyway.
Amy Guskin
(in article <hgisp9$l1e$1...@news.eternal-september.org>):
Also, it's a big enough that my hunch is that it really doesn't matter who,
or how many, are booked as guests right now. People _know_ that they're
going to have big name guests, and lots of 'em. I doubt most people go to a
con like that for one specific person.
voxwoman
> >> On Sat, 19 Dec 2009 10:51:04 -0500, Blair Leatherwood wrote
>
>
>
>
> > Charlie E. wrote:
> >> On Sat, 19 Dec 2009 09:52:15 -0500, Amy Guskin
> >> <aisl...@fjordstone.com> wrote:
>
> >>>>> On Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:15:43 -0500, Jan wrote
>
> >>>> In article <shroi5h7jfo04v2p8jm69p5vj45g6ho...@4ax.com>, Charlie E.
> >>>> says...
And you don't know who's buying the tickets, or how many at once - I
am very interested to see if large quantities of tickets go up for
auction on eBay or something later on. DragonCon hotel rooms are
getting like that, I think. If you want to get a room in the main
hotel, you have to book it a year in advance (that's what some people
on a D*C list do, anyway).
I suppose it's a good thing for this niche of fandom to basically go
mainstream, but all it does for me is keep me from attending. When
events get this big, I don't have much fun.
-Wendy
Charlie E.
Well, supposedly, the tickets are non-transferrable. You have to buy
them in the name to be used on the day of the event. But, that
doesn't mean someone hasn't come up with a scheme to get around
this...
Charlie
Chris Adams
>And you don't know who's buying the tickets, or how many at once - I
>am very interested to see if large quantities of tickets go up for
>auction on eBay or something later on. DragonCon hotel rooms are
>getting like that, I think. If you want to get a room in the main
>hotel, you have to book it a year in advance (that's what some people
>on a D*C list do, anyway).
I think some of the main D*C hotels took reservations for next year at
check-out this year. I stay in the Marriott, which "waited" until
November (9 months before D*C!); they did a screwy third-party on-line
reservation thing this year (that didn't go well) and sold out the hotel
in about 5 minutes (I got my room just under the wire).
The big difference of course is that you can cancel a hotel reservation,
usually with no charge.
As for waiting to see who is going to be at SDCC: I think you do have to
assume a good number of "big names" will be there, and also that you
can't plan to go to a major con based on just one or two people (that
could cancel). I know at D*C we've had people cancel at the last minute
(or even show up and then leave early) due to a wide variety of things.
People in movies get called back for additional shots, people have
family emergencies, etc. For actors, making movies and TV shows is
their paying job, while the con is something they do on their own time
(and they don't get paid), so if a job comes up, they'll go where
they'll get paid.
It's my understanding that things are a little different with SDCC,
since it is a corporate-run con, but I'm sure a lot of the same still
applies.
--
Chris Adams <cma...@hiwaay.net>
Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services
I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.
voxwoman
> Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services
> I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.
I thought D*C pays the guests to show up. Or is it just transportation
and room/board? I understood they had a significant budget for guests.
-Wendy
Chris Adams
>I thought D*C pays the guests to show up. Or is it just transportation
>and room/board? I understood they had a significant budget for guests.
No, AFAIK it is just transportation and room/board for the "celeb"
guests; non-celeb guests (e.g. a PHD friend of mine that does science
track panels) just get a free badge. The way the guests make money
during the weekend is selling autographs.
--
Chris Adams <cma...@hiwaay.net>