The fire marshal has decided that strollers in panel rooms is not a good idea and banned them — but only from panel rooms. There will be stroller parking available. Meaning if you must bring your bairn to Hall H you must bring him or her in a sling.
The dreaded “jogging stroller•” of Zenda is banned all together.
For safety reasons, the Fire Marshall will not be allowing strollers inside the programming rooms. This includes rooms 2, 4, 5AB, 6A, 6BCF, 6DE, 7AB, *, 11AB, 23ABC, 24ABC, 25ABC, 26AB, 28E, 32AB, Ballroom 20, and Hall H.
Stroller parking areas can be found throughout the Convention Center. Parking will be free of charge and provided on a first-come, first-serve basis. Please note: Comic-Con will not provide security or check-in/check-out for the strollers
For more information and a PDF of the locations please visit the Important Information page of our web site:
http://www.comic-con.org/cci/cci_important_info.php
Also, jogging style strollers are not allowed at Comic-Con.
* Yes, we’re out of touch.
Sad. In ancient days the fact that comics geeks were able to find a mate & procreate would be celebrated by the entire community.
Why is it sad? Babies don’t care about comic con, save the space for someone who does.
Bairn? I prefer the term youngling. I’m dating a Jedi knight.
Get a mei tai. They can be worn with the baby in front, or Yoda-style in the back. (Extra points if you place a little Yoda-earred cap on your baby. Double points if you knit it yourself. Double-plus points if it was knit by the child’s grandmother.)
You could probably use a backpack, but consult your pediatrician first.
For toddlers: A leash.
Seriously, that’s what they’re called: a “toddler leash”. Dress them up in a costume with mittens, like a teddy bear, to keep them from grabbing stuff.
Of course, the normal emergency information applies. What sort of “Code Adam” procedures does CCI employ?
They should ban strollers from the main convention floor as well. They impede foot traffic and it would be in line with SDCC’s ban on wheeled carts on the convention floor.
At a different convention, I saw a woman pushing a baby stroller through the convention floor with a blanket entirely covering it. When I asked the woman how her baby was able to breathe with a blanket entirely covering it, she lifted the blanket up and instead of a baby inside, it was full of all the paraphernalia she had bought at the convention.
So…. just ban strollers entirely.
I agree with banning the strollers. As we live in a crowded city with an overcrowded public transit system, we almost always have carried or strapped on our daughter instead of making our stroller everyone else’s problem to work around. I would imagine the same would be true of the crowding at SDCC.
For the last two MOCCA festivals we strapped our baby on and she loved it. It gave her a much better vantage point to see people and things. Why bring her at all if she is just going to be staring at the legs of our fellow fans the whole time. I would not wish that on anyone.
Devil’s Advocate here:
The problem is that kids / children get seriously *tired* walking that football field of a con floor (and that’s just the main exhibit hall, add the panel rooms and the foot traffic just getting into the front door and even healthy adults are taxed).
The stroller helps both the parent and the child. Yes, a child can be carried in a sling or strap-pack, et., but that tires out the parent. Furthermore, some folks bring more than one child. Those with various age ranges of infant + toddler + kid are often pulled in several directions at different speeds.
I’d say, in my opinion, that the event is getting significantly harder for the whole family to take in. I’d hate to see good and well-intentioned supporters of our industry penalized for having children — who we’d all love to grow up and continue to support the medium.
I’m a bit at odds about this… especially when SDCC does promote Sunday as a *kids / family* day. It’s a tough call.
Granted, if the Fire Marshall is making the call then there’s no real say in the matter. Saving lives will always trump convenience. Still… it begs the question of how to be fair.
Oops, I meant to say… in my ramblings… that some toddlers are too big to carry in a sling or backpack. They get tired out, too. Don’t get me wrong, I’m in favor or less strollers, or even a ban, but (as a parent) I’ve seen both sides of the matter at SDCC and thought I’d play Devil’s Advocate.
Take your kids to a playground, SDCC is too expensive, crowded and inside baseball for a kid.
I can understand the frustration over this by parents, but it’s the right move. Even certain parts of Disney require you to park your buggies. It’s not saying you can’t have a stroller, you just can’t being them in to the panel rooms, and you can’t bring the double-wides to the show.
Those double-wides are a pain everywhere, they take up the whole sidewalk whenever I see em.
If your child is old enough to walk on their own, then they don’t need a stroller. To insist on pushing your able-bodied child around in a stroller, because either they get tired walking around, or a parent gets tired of carrying them around, puts your own needs before others because it’s more convenient for you to have other people’s path blocked or have other people walk around you. Have you seen some of these giant-sized “strollers” people push around these day? They’re like mini-SUV’s.
If fatigue is the problem, then do what other people do when they get tired trudging around the convention floor, and go sit down on the floor outside the main exhibit hall, or grab some seats at one of the cafe/food areas.
If those commonsense solutions aren’t desirable for you, then maybe you should think about not bringing your child to Comic-Con.
Sounds like the right move to me — especially for the double-wide monstrosities I’ve seen some people pushing around lately. I swear a few are big enough to sport a bar and a jacuzzi.
But how will I haul my tacos around?
We use a compact umbrella stroller at Comic-Con for my son. He’s two and half, so, yes, he can walk on his own. But his legs are a lot shorter than a grown-ups, and he gets tired faster. Also, it is downright *dangerous* to let a kid walk in crowds like that. Comic-Con attendees love their giant-ass backpacks, and they turn around without concern as to what or who is behind them. I’ve been smacked somewhat painfully a number of times in the shoulder — for a kid, it would be square in the face.
As for people who say leave the kids at home. Sunday is Family Day at Comic-Con. And comics are definitely a family thing with us. My kid is in my office with me right now, looking at comics on the floor of my office as I’m wrapping up my preparations for the convention.
Well, actually, he’s just wandered out of my office into the production room….
One possible solution:
Host a parallel family-friendly children’s comic-con at a nearby hotel, with separate tickets. Offer a full slate of programs, repeating some if popular (like workshops). Let kids meet voice actors, have the studios bring in character costumes for photo ops, tease new cartoons and kids shows and movies, host a costume parade, offer face painting, give each kid a bag of swag on the way out…
And yes, make the aisles extra wide for strollers.
Bought a ticket to Comic-Con? Get a free family pass to Kiddie-Con. And a free “parents pass” that allows the parents (or guardians) to trade the pass, so that one parent can attend Comic-Con while the other watches the kids at the kids’ con.
When I said that Sunday is Family Day at Comic-Con, I didn’t mean it as a personal moniker. It’s actually a day when kid-friendly programming takes place, as well as a children’s film festival. I don’t think Comic-Con would want people leaving the hall, possibly not to return that day, to go to a parallel convention just because people have the mistaken belief that kids aren’t welcome at Comic-Con.
Kids should be welcome at Comic-Con.
Strollers should not.
Jennifer is exactly right. I said as much in my post above. Sunday *is* promoted and presented as “family day” at SDCC. Events, programming, film, et. It’s in the Program Guide every year.
As I said, I’m not against the idea of minimizing strollers, but seeing it from the other side, there will always be a case justifying an exception. Be it exhaustion, a leg in a cast, medical condition or whatever.
I don’t have a solution, and I’m sure the organizers have tried… but it seems sad that someone, somewhere, will be turned away based on a broad brush ban without consideration.
And on the other hand (again, looking at both sides) I can see where strollers have been abusive and misused, as well. Like I said… I got no answers.
Jennifer — what is the much-feared Jogging stroller?
Also agree with you that toddlers could eaisly be trampled and need protection of some kind.
I think strollers are a bigger evacuation danger in the main hall than in the panel rooms. Can you imagine strollers+100K people trying to get out fast?
I’m sorry, but “Family Day” or no, leave the infant/toddler at home. When you have kids, you know sacrifices have to be made. There are plenty of other situations where kids that young aren’t appropriate. Want to go white-water rafting? Well, one of you will have to stay ashore with the baby. When the kid gets old enough to survive the rigors of the show she’s probably old enough to enjoy it more as well.
Missing a few hours of a con or even the whole because you have very young children isn’t the end of the world. Have some consideration for what bringing them does to thousands of people who are impacted by that stroller.
Even i agree that strollers are bigger evacuation danger in the main hall than in the panel rooms..
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