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The first email has gone out with the time for San Diego Comic-Con badge sales. Although the email urges everyone to keep it a little secret between themselves and Comic-Con, the on-sale is already being tweeted about and won’t stay secret long.

HOWEVER, if you do not have a Member ID forget it — you cannot buy a badge.

REPEAT: You cannot buy a badge without a member ID.

So don’t go clogging up the on-sale just hanging around hoping one will fall from the sky! If you do have a badge…GERONIMO!

The wait is over! Comic-Con 2012 badges will go on sale at 8:00 a.m. PST on Saturday March 3rd, 2012. To access the EPIC online registration website, click the following link: REDACTED

Please note, this link will not be active until 8:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. If you click this link early, you will receive a “404 – NOT FOUND” error page and you will need to close your browser window and click the link again at or after 8:00 a.m. PST.

As a member of the Comic-Con Member ID preferred “E-List”, you are receiving first notification of the badge sales date/time and the exclusive link to registration. Although you are required to have a Member ID to purchase a badge, sharing the above link on a social networking site may decrease your chances of obtaining a badge. Although only those with a Member ID will be allowed to purchase a badge, the EPIC waiting room is open to the general public and if the link above is leaked online, we anticipate that several thousand people who did not sign-up for a Member ID will attempt to access the registration system erroneously. Additionally, should you choose to share the date or link online, it is likely to be picked up by numerous media outlets who will share this information with a larger audience.

We strongly recommend that you visit http://www.comic-con.org/cci/cci_reg.php and download the “Comic-Con 2012 Helpful Hints and Tips for Online Badge Registration” PDF. Reading this document may give you and advantage in obtaining a badge over others who choose not to read it. 

All of us at Comic-Con would like to sincerely thank you for your patience and understanding during the new Member ID registration and badge sales process. As you know because of limited space at the San Diego Convention Center we have had to cap attendance for the last few years. The new Member ID registration process is an attempt to streamline the process of purchasing a badge and hopefully reducing, to a great number, those who purchase badges only for resale. Thereby making more badges available to individuals.

We honestly wish we could accommodate each and every person who would like to attend the show, and while we are making strides to increase space by utilizing hotels and outdoor venues, the problem of attendance is one that all of us continue to work on constantly.
 
Thank you very much for your support of Comic-Con, and your love of comics and the popular arts.

If you are not planning to purchase a badge during online sales, please disregard this notice. This e-mail does not relate to professional, press, exhibitor, volunteer, or program participant registration.


Has there ever been a more wistful sentence kin the English language than this?

“Additionally, should you choose to share the date or link online, it is likely to be picked up by numerous media outlets who will share this information with a larger audience.”

Out of courtesy we are not running the link, but we imagine you can find it easily enough. But why would you unless you already have a Member ID? And if you don’t…well, remember we kept telling you to get one.

Based on the tweet stream, volunteer acceptances are also going out.

The announcement has caused headaches and that kinda-pukey feeling in the stomachs of Nathan Fillion fans everywhere.


Good luck and god speed.

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15 COMMENTS

  2. It states not to, but yu do anyways. Idiot. Everyone’s tweeting it…more idiots. God, I’ve decided not to go this year because of the mass of idiots that are going these days, way to ruin comic-con while simultaneously prevent others from getting a ticket.

  3. Agree with post above ^^^

    Thanks for sharing what Comic-Con asked you not to share and then build up hype that makes it harder for everyone buying badges. Poor poor (and let’s be real here… UNETHICAL) journalism

  4. You could have just said “emails with badge information are going out now. Check your spam folder if you signed up for a Memlber I D and haven’t gotten one.”. By publishing all the information, even with the Member ID disclaimer, you know you’re giving people the idea that anyone can go on and buy one. They’re going to make the process harder for everyone involved because the site will now be more crowded.

  5. Hmmmm…I have my Member ID but I received no e-mail about this. Any other people with member ID’s not get this e-mail?

  6. Dude. ‘The fu*k.
    People aren’t supposed to say anything.
    I swear… -.-
    Anyways, I’m still stoked to go.

  7. “way to ruin comic-con while simultaneously prevent others from getting a ticket.”

    “build up hype that makes it harder for everyone buying badges.”

    “you know you’re giving people the idea that anyone can go on and buy one.”

    These comments are ridiculous. Really people? It doesn’t matter if the whole world knows WHEN badges go on sale if they don’t know where.

  8. The site for registration is going to crash again because so many people are going to be buying tickets at the same time! So stupid of them to sell tickets on a Saturday! They are going to piss off alot of people again as well because alot of people will not be able to buy tickets! There was alsolutely nothing wrong with selling tickets on a Monday because tickets sold alot slower, and most people who bought a ticket got to go. This really shows the greed and carelessness that the organiziers of Comic Con have!

  9. Oh, I will still get mad if I don’t get a ticket but I will least get over it because there other comic book conventions I can go enjoy without all the headaches involved with Comic Con. WonderCon Anaheim, Long Beach Comic Expo, and Long Beach Comic & Horror Con, here I come!

  10. I still like my idea of “quietly” posting the badges online and it’s your responsibility to check the website every day.

    Doesn’t matter to me as I already bought mine last year. But another crash here we come.

  13. Ugh. It’s as if Comic-Con found out how badly Burning Man was running its ticket sales and decided, “We’ve gotta one-up them on Teh Stupid.”

    It’s bad enough that anyone who *didn’t* sign up for a member ID can cut into line for buying the actual badges as long as they’ve got the link, Comic-Con goes and essentially endorses the line-cutting by *publicizing* the website hole in an email, thereby enabling members who want their friends who didn’t register for an ID by the end of February that they can get in line to buy one anyway!

    Between this and how badly Pre-Reg for this year was handled at the 2011 Convention — the few morning hours and small percentage of tickets that were available meant that one could either choose to go to panels or one could choose to get into line to wait for the possibility of being able to spend $150 to buy a ticket to be able to get into line at the 2012 convention to wait for the possibility of being able to spend $150 to buy a ticket to be able to get into line at the 2013 for . . .

    I’m just appalled. One-hundred percent appalled.

    This debacle calls for two things:

    First, delay registration (yet again) until this loophole is closed.

    Second, for 2013 make Comic-Con a multi-city event. And by multi-city, I obviously don’t mean a tour (because movie and TV people can’t do a tour, duh!) I mean that the Con should be held in not just San Diego, but also in satellite locations across the country at the same time. Seattle, Kansas City (or St. Louis), Orlando (or Miami). Maybe Boston, too. Have A-list panels at each location that can be simulcast by satellite to all the other locations. A Big Bang Theory panel in Hall H could be simulcast and followed up by an NCIS panel simulcast from the Hall H equivalent in Kansas City. A Burn Notice panel in Miami could be followed by a Supernatural panel in Seattle. And so on. Local comics dealers would have cheaper local dealers’ rooms. Publishers and toy companies alike could offer exclusives based on the location.

    Honestly, even in the medium-term, the city of San Diego isn’t going to be able to keep up with the demand for expansion to accomodate everyone who wants to go to Comic-Con. The only thing that makes any real sense to me regarding addressing the demand with anything approaching adequacy, much less fairness, is to expand it to other cities.

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