Badges for this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego will go on sale this Saturday morning. There's a kind of lottery for them that involves logging in and entering your registration code between 7 AM and 9 AM Pacific Time. Read this page for further details.
That page gives ten tips. I am going to quote the last one here…
10. Unfortunately not everyone who participates in Open Online Registration will be able to purchase a badge.
Gaining admittance to the waiting room does not guarantee you a badge or a registration session; there are simply far more people who want to attend than there are badges available. We appreciate your continued support and hope the new changes we made this year will make the process less problematic than it has been in the past.
It would be great if everyone who wants to attend this wondrous event could do so. It would also be great if everyone who wants to find a job these days could do so. There is no convention center on this planet that could hold all the human beings who would like to be at Comic-Con. If you were running the con, you might come up with a different system to determine who gets in and who doesn't but you would still have to turn the same number of people away.
For some reason, the con website seems to have omitted the all-important Rule #11 so I'm going to post it here…
11. If you are unable to secure badges for Comic-Con, do not write, phone or otherwise pester Mark Evanier to help you gain admittance.
I do not work for the convention. I'm just a Special Guest or a Guest of Honor or whatever they call us. Yes, I automatically get in each year. So does everyone who's won one of the con's Inkpot Awards. So do most people who have a decent amount of credits in the industries embraced by the convention. I am not unsympathetic to the position of those who can't get badges but I cannot help you. Each year, a couple of people get really, really mad at me when I say no, while others break my heart with tales of having promised their kids or needing access because they're desperate for work and think that attending Comic-Con will somehow get them some. I think they're usually kidding themselves with that last reason.
If you get shut out this weekend, I can only suggest four things. One is that if you know anyone who is exhibiting at the convention — someone who has purchased space to sell their wares or promote their product — you talk to them. Exhibitors may have extra badges.
Secondly: They will sell out this Saturday for certain…but there may be more badges available later. There's usually a point when returned badges will be put on sale. Badges are non-transferable and if someone can't go, they can get a refund on their badge(s) up until May 23. After that, some returned badges may be offered.
Thirdly: As I mentioned, badges are non-transferable. If someone offers to sell you theirs, don't buy it. It might not be real and even if it is, it might not get you in.
And lastly: The one thing I can suggest to those denied admittance this year is that much — maybe even most of what is grand about Comic-Con is also grand about WonderCon, which is run by the same folks and which takes place at the Anaheim Convention Center from April 18-20. Many of the same exhibitors are there, often with the exact same booths. Much of the same excitement ensues…and I will even be doing some of the same panels there. You can get a badge to WonderCon right now on that website.
Sorry if you don't get in…but please don't complain to me. Matter of fact, please don't complain to me about anything. I get too much of that these days.