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As you may have heard, the San Diego Comic-Con has adjusted the way you are going to buy your badges. I saw some anxiety cropping up when the traditional badge registration was delayed, and now we know why: the system has been overhauled. No longer can you buy a four day badge — only single day badges will be available.

Now this is NOT as dire as it sounds. In a post on their blog, they explain what’s happening. You can still buy tickets for all four days and Preview Night with a single click, but once one day is sold out, you won’t be able to do this any more. The reasoning behind the changes? It’s actually pretty sound.

The decision to move from a 4-Day badge option to single day badge options was to give each attendee more flexibility when purchasing. Since we no longer offer a discount for purchasing all four days, the 4-Day option was repetitive and often led to people purchasing a 4-Day badge despite not needing to attend every day. We hope this change will allow attendees to purchase only the days they truly need and maximize the number of people who can get a badge to attend Comic-Con.


So yeah if you bought a four-day badge and only went to that Klingon Lifestyle Gathering on Saturday morning you were preventing three other people from maybe going for a day so they could stand in line all day for their Big Bang Theory tea cozy.

The post also has a screen shot of the new process which, once you get in the system will allow you to buy up to three badges, BUT all three must have member IDs. Plan ahead!

Also the cost of this five day badge will now be $200, which is not an insignificant amount of money but up only $10 from last year.

The Unofficial Comic-Con Blog (which is actually a pretty comprehensive rundown of information for the type of people who go to Con these days) has a sensible post on the matter, and moaning in the comments. It is true, policies have changed from those that favor the same people going every year (four day badge holders being able to buy a badge for the next year while at the con) to one that will actively encourage people who couldn’t go to maybe get in on Thursday or Sunday. It’s just evolution.

To put it another, everyone has been wailing that SDCC needs to change the way they do things…and they have. it just wasn’t the way everyone wanted it changed.

Professional, press and other “Pro” badges will still be all four days and preview night. So comics people who wish they got a perk …now you do!

5 COMMENTS

  1. Yeah, I don’t know what the backlash was all about. You can still buy a 4-day badge with preview night with just one click. I guess people might be worried that they have to click on more than one checkbox and thus lose time. Still not a big deal though…

  2. I thought it was very telling and crappy that the SDCC folks chose to release this news Friday rather than today.

    My $64K question: Why in the world would you and your family’s lend mucho bucks traveling cross-country to a show like SDCC if you couldn’t be guaranteed the ability to buy passes for everyone? You don’t.

  3. I’ve been a comics fan since 1967, and a professional since the 1970s, but I didn’t have the means and opportunity to attend Comic-Con International until 2005. I loved it, so I made it an annual event — that is, until I got squeezed out in 2013. Professional passes sold out in something like an hour — which was unprecedented — and by the time I was able to get to a computer, it was too late.

    I’m happy CCI is doing extremely well, as it means the CCI folks have done a terrific job building the brand over the years. It’s also a vivid example of how comics and other popular culture mediums have totally gone mainstream — something that was just a mad fan’s dream 30 years ago. Other major cons are enjoying similar successes.

    But it looks like us comics fan pioneers are now becoming victims of our own success, with more and more of us now watching the party from the outside.

    And while I miss CCI, I’ll get over it.

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