As if we didn’t have enough Holiday stress to deal with, the open sales for 2018 San Diego Comic-Con badges takes place THIS SATURDAY. This is months earlier for Badge-o-ween than in the past, I guess to allow people to stress out about hotels for months more?
NOTE: The sale is Dece,ber 9th not this weekend! DERP getting ahead of myself here.
Ah, the smell of it! Just thinking about 2018 brings the deeply buried memories of crowds, hallways, hotel rooftops and breakfast burritos. It becomes a part of you.
The sale to folks who already had badges already took place, so this is the one for people who didn’t go in 2017 or have never been and it’s the lottery for dreamers, for wishers for adventurers, for people looking to have the greatest 4 1/2 days of their life!
You can only buy daily badges now, but if you score all five days and Preview Night it will only set you back $276 – cheep for the greatest adventure/legal drug trip possible.
The Unofficial SDCC blog site has all the details and hints, down to “don’t lend money to people you don’t trust”:
What You Need
Above all else, you need to actually be eligible for Open Registration for 2018 (rocket science, right?). This is actually much easier than Returning Registration (October’s sale, for those eligible attendees who attended in 2017). Instead, all you need to be eligible for Open Registration is a Member ID (you must have already created one — any new Member IDs created after 9:30AM PT on November 27 will not be eligible for Open Registration this year), and to not have already purchased all four days with Preview Night during Returning Registration (alternatively, if you are a Professional or Press who has already registered their badge, you’re also out). Easy, right?
Those with Member IDs will get waiting room links, and can enter between 8 am and 9 am PST and then….then it’s a lottery.
Beginning just after 9AM, EXPO Logic will randomly assign everyone in the waiting room a place in line to purchase badges. This is a completely random process – and those who arrived at 8AM on the dot have as much chance of getting a “good” spot in line as those who entered at 8:59AM. There is no advantage to arriving early. However, there is a disadvantage to arriving late, as those who try to enter after 9AM will not be allowed in, and the room will be closed to new entrants. For this reason, it might be good to arrive a little early, to test that everything is working properly prior to 9AM.
Really there is nothing you can do to increase the odds, I guess, except to get a badge buying group together (BUT you can only buy three badges total!), pray, sacrifice a small plant, or roll dice, cast bones, roll the I Ching, and so on.
It will be a nervous Saturday morning for many, so as always, MAY THE ODDS EVER BE IN YOUR FAVOR.
Heidi MacDonald is the founder and editor in chief of The Beat. In the past, she worked for Disney, DC Comics, Fox and Publishers Weekly. She can be heard regularly on the More To Come Podcast. She likes coffee, cats and noble struggle.
It’s Dec. 9th, NEXT Saturday, not this Saturday.