§ This column has been absent for the usual reasons, a big deadline on an outside project, travel and the fact that running this site now takes up about half my day. But I’ve been hoarding away links like a squirrel under the acorn tree. Unfortunately no one is going to care about much besides […]
San Diego Comic-Con #hoteloween 2016: the terror of the random
The San Diego hotel room lottery, known variously as #hoteloween (by a few old timers) and #hotelpocalypse (by the current generation), took place this morning and it was a terrifying new version that found the randomization previously used for badges not applied to hotel rooms. Travelplanners, now renamed On Peak is still handling the process, […]
Early bird hotel rooms now available for San Diego Comic-Con 2016
The annual “Early Bird Hotel Room Sale” is on for the San Diego Comic-Con. If you can’t stand the stress and heartache of Hoteloween—believed to be held April 5 this year—you can just go and book a room that is a little off the beaten path – Mission Valley or the Airport – but still on […]
SDCC ’15: Comic-Con is staying in San Diego! Plus next year’s dates and this year’s wristbands
Life as we know it is going back to normal next year as the dates for SDCC ’16 have been revealed and it’s back to the normal third week dates of July 21-14. Thank god. None of this post Fourth of July hell. In even better news that will shock everyone, it looks like Con […]
#hotelpocalypse is over…how will your life continue?
Some people are very upset about how this year’s San Diego Comic-Con hotel sale went. But should they be?
#hoteloween: just how fast must you be to get a good room at Comic-Con?
Getting a hotel room for Comic-con is a physical and mental race against the clock. You need to have Nolan Ryan’s fastball, Ronda Rousey’s reflexes and Edward Snowden’s keyboard skills. It’s the ultimate test of nerves for nerds.
But some may wonder, just how short IS the window to get a room downtown?
San Diego Comic-Con Hoteloween was scarier than usual this year
As I write this, the hotel situation for this year’s San Diego Comic-Con remains in flux. Open hotel registration—which is in effect a lottery based on hand and browser speed—took place yesterday morning, and it was a tense, tense 10 minutes with confirmation emails yet to go out.
Hours of training, both physical and mental, memorizing maps and testing internet speed were all for nought for a bunch of folks—the Beat included—because the website suffered some kind of hitch. Tony Kim has a sad account, backed up by many on Twitter. As the world collectively hit the refresh button at high noon EDT, 9 am PDT, the hotel selection form froze up and then sent you to the “Congrats, wait for your email” screen. That’s what happened here. I got the first screen, clicked on some hotels hit return, got kicked out and then sat there in confusion and dread and then went back in. The second time it worked but by then four minutes had passed, four precious, precious minutes, and downtown hotels are usually gone long before that to people with better autofill speeds.
Hoteloween is tomorrow!
Arrrgh, the most tension filled day of the year for Stately Beat Manor is tomorrow. San Diego Comic-Con hotel registration opens up at noon EDT, 9 am PDT. Gentlemen, start your browsers….and do not refresh. There are more rooms that ever this year, and the cancellations are refundable until April 15th so even if you […]
San Diego Comic-Con parking goes to lottery syetem
Remember back in the day two years ago when you could go on the Ace Parking site and buy advance parking for the San Diego Comic-Con?
Well, this is no more. A new random lottery based system has been put in place, to go with all the other random lottery systems for Comic-Con:
Hoteloween: downtown hotels were gone in about 20 minutes
It’s the scariest day of the year! Well, scariest if you already have a badge that is. Hotel registration for the San Diego Comic-Con took place at 9 am pdt, and it didn’t take long for the close hotels to go – this tweet went out about 9:23: No surprise, but: welcome page message on […]