I'll probably be blogging about the Comic-Con for another week or so here and as you can see, I'm not even trying to proceed in sequence. It was an extraordinary event and at the risk of annoying those who couldn't be there, I have to say that I enjoyed every second of every minute of every hour of every day.
That statement will also probably tick off the two dozen or so folks who were there and who somehow think that I am the Complaint Department for the convention and that an irate e-mail to me will deliver an immediate promise that whatever pissed them off will be remedied. That wouldn't be the case even if I agreed with their bitching, most of which comes down to the shocking discovery that it's crowded down there. I'm afraid that's what this particular convention is. There were around 125,000 people at this year's convention. There will be around 125,000 at next year's convention. If and when the con moves (which I don't think it will) or the convention center down there expands (likely), there will be more than 125,000 people there. Moaning about the crowds at Comic-Con is like going to a strip club and being outraged to find naked women named Jasmine and Bambi with fake breasts.
Many of the other complaints could be alleviated if the complainer would do a little more advance planning. Let me give you some cold, hard facts of life. Next year's Comic-Con is July 21-24. It will sell out and given the pace at which advance registrations sold at this year's con — that is, folks at this year's buying tix for next year's — 2011 will sell out even sooner than this year's did. I'm not sure how soon online registration will open — I'll try to give you some advance warning if I can — but the minute it does, order your tickets. If you're even thinking of going, order your tickets as soon as possible and don't dawdle about arranging for lodging, either. If you decide next May to go, you're going to have problems.
A brief, probably unnecessary digression. Back in '69, I paid my first — and for a long time, only visit to Disneyland. My friend Dwight was in town. He wanted to go so we went…and did darn near everything wrong, starting with getting there via a long, circuitous bus ride that left us exhausted before we'd made it halfway past Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln. We didn't plan anything, didn't research. We had no idea where to eat or which attractions we might have particularly enjoyed. We just went, had a miserable time and blamed Disneyland. For years, I didn't go back.
Now, obviously this is not a majority sentiment about the place. More than one or two people seem to love the occasional visit to the Happiest Place on Earth. It took a while (I can be slower than the line to get into the Pirates of the Caribbean) but it finally dawned on me that it was humanly possible to go there and enjoy one's self…so maybe, just maybe the problem was on my end. Upon that realization, I obtained and studied a travel guide. I drew up a little rough map and itinerary. I figured out not to go on a steaming-hot, tourist-infested day…another mistake Dwight and I had made. And the next time there, I had a pretty good time.
Moral of the story? I had to figure out how to make Disneyland work for me…and now it does. If you attend Comic-Con down in San Diego and don't have a grand experience…well, first point: Maybe you're simply attending the wrong convention. There are plenty of smaller ones and maybe one of them would be a better fit. Or perhaps you could learn to have a better time at Comic-Con…figure out an easier way to go and a more efficient way to use your time there. I can't tell you how often the following conversation occurs with just the time and event changing: Someone comes up to me and says, "Hey, my friend told me Quick Draw! was great this morning. Wish I'd known about it."
The folks who run Comic-Con do a superb job. I've been going to conventions for four decades now. I've been to some of the worst-run, unprofessional gatherings and I've also seen how much can go wrong even at the well-operated ones. I am stunned by how much goes right in San Diego, how good those folks down there are at assembling this incredible event each year. There's always room for improvement and I'm sure they'll continue to improve. They always do. But the way I see it, they offer us this wonderful, varied buffet each year and it's up to us to take from it what we want. As I've said before, the convention you want to attend is in there amidst all the convention experiences about which you couldn't care less. You just need to find yours.