Why I Stopped going to Comic-Con.

I’d been attending San Diego Comic-Con since I moved down to SoCal in 2000. I always looked forward to four (now five) days of being in my nerd mecca, collecting SWAG for co-workers who couldn’t make it, coming back with news on this or that new hotness, and cosplaying it up like it was the end of the world. But I started to notice something… 

Holy moly it is CROWDED! There’s lines EVERYWHERE! Lines to get in, go to panels, get that SDCC exclusive figure (ahem, adult collectible), get food, go to the bathroom, get a free t-shirt, etc. There were even lines for buying your badge for the following year! (This was back when they still did that onsite.)

As the years went on, the con spread to a few areas outside of the convention center, including the neighboring hotels and attractions like Petco Park. (At least this will help those Pokemon Go Players hatch those pesky eggs, right?) Yet things were still crowded as a mall on Black Friday, more so if the cast of Twilight or Harry Potter were going to be there.

In 2007, I’d had back surgery, but was still determined to attend. Even in a wheelchair and a disabled stamp on that shiny badge, you couldn’t always get into the panels you hoped for. (I think that year was Doctor Who with a rare appearance by David Tennant.)

Ever since, I’ve had a cane with me because all the walking hurts like heck. Every year, I would have that handicapped sticker on my badge, and we found out that people would still push by you and try to knock you over in a rush to get an autograph from the cast of Supernatural (or whomever). It also got to the point where waiting to get into Hall H was impossible.

Being a semi-reasonable human being, I was not willing to sleep on the sidewalk outside the convention center. I really liked sleeping in a regular bed, in a friend’s house, safe from a potential crime, and being able to take a shower in the mornings. (I made an effort to bathe and put on extra deodorant every single day.)

The final straw came in 2011. My husband began to have panic attacks while in the Dealer’s Hall (Which is MASSIVE) due to the crowds. On Sunday Morning, we drug our bleary, sleep-deprived (hungover due to parties) butts out of bed to get to the con early for a panel on the cartoon Young Justice (RIP). We figure ‘Eh, two hours before the panel starts should get us in with a handicapped stamp, right?’ We arrive, sloppy breakfasts in hand. And wouldn’t you know it?

THERE IS ANOTHER LINE TO GET IN THE ROOM. It is easily a hundred people long. We ask if there is space for disabled seating. It is full. The room has been full for about an hour and the Fire Marshall is hovering uneasily. My heart breaks just a little bit. Then they announce the room is filled to capacity and no one will be permitted in. The line, which has swelled to another hundred people, groans in dismay. We are asked to disperse. My husband, friend and I take our breakfast burritos and coffee and wander somewhere quiet to eat in peace and sulk.

The consensus among our group is filled with words I won’t repeat here (We’re a pretty salty bunch). At this point, I kind of want to go sleep in the car. Instead, we make the best of it. We pick up a few more things from the Dealer’s Hall. Catch a few magical Photo Ops.

Around Lunchtime, we decide we’re done. As we’re chowing down at the Old Spaghetti Factory, Hubby and I come to a rather painful agreement: SDCC is not fun anymore. It’s a pain in the hiney to get badges, get anything done on your wish list, and given we were unwilling to camp outside in the sun for 3+hours to get into Hall H, we were just DONE. We want to go home, put our feet up, eat salads (We’d been on a steady diet of energy bars and Red Bull most of the weekend) and nap.

A few weeks later, we had a discussion: Did we want to try going to SDCC again? We began to put together a list of Pros and Cons:

PROS:

-The parties (Open Bars are a magical thing.)

-Seeing exclusive cool stuff before You Tube posts it.

-Buying awesome toys and comics.

-Meeting celebs and telling them how much we appreciate them.

-The Cosplay.

-Seeing old friends and making new ones.

-The eateries our Local SD friend would take us to. (I’m still looking at you, Extraordinary Desserts!)

CONS:

-The crowds.

-The cost of the Badge itself (plus lodging, transportation, etc.)

-The inability to grab some of those exclusive figures and such due to them selling out

-Lines for everything!

-Some con-goers just being total jerkfaces.

-How likely it would be for both of us to get badges for next year

The more we thought about it, the more we were willing to give up on going. There were plenty of other, smaller cons we were willing to support. Wondercon pretty much happened in our backyard, and Long Beach Comic-Con was a short drive, as was Comikaze. (Attending all three cost less than SDCC combined!) We’d still be able to get the important news via Social Media, and enjoy walking around with a strange thing called ‘Breathing room’.

So we made the choice, we would no longer go to SDCC. We would support the smaller cons and still be able to get that itch scratched. We wouldn’t feel like trout trying to swim upstream. We could still cosplay. We could still have an opportunity to meet the creators of our favorite comics and such. We just wouldn’t be getting shoved around nearly as much. We could also sleep in our own bed (cat at our feet) and above all, these cons wouldn’t sell out in two seconds. We had time to budget and plan.

It also meant that the fun of attending wouldn’t be limited to just one weekend. It would be spread out throughout the year! We could have all sorts of adventures! Our wallets would sigh with relief. That was that, we began to look up the other cons and plug dates into our respective calendars. Sometimes we would only go for a day, sometimes the entire weekend. We felt a lot less stress of making it to every panel or getting our hands on that exclusive figure (especially when some of the exhibitors held concurrent online sales for those coveted items. MattyCollector.com has been so good about this!) We could actually go, have a really good time, and not be cranky as we headed to the car to go home. It was actually pretty refreshing. That kind of sealed the deal for us.

I’m not saying boycott SDCC. I’m just happy there are so many alternatives out there. There’s cons for any fandom, and at least in SoCal, they happen pretty often. Take a second to explore what’s happening in your own backyard. You might find a treasure trove of awesome that you may not have sought out otherwise! Our calendar!

Be Well,

-Jen