Oh dear god. Why? Why? Why?
It's true; you can only buy single day badges for this year's San Diego Comic Con. Which CCI announced with a jaunty little "New!" as if this was some kind of especially thrilling news. As for the genius thought process behind this decision: they mentioned giving us more "flexibility" (there's a word I'll never associate with Comic-Con) and no longer offering "a discount."
Speaking of prices:
Preview Night: $35
Thursday, Friday and Satuday badges: $45 each
Sunday badge: $30
(That's $200 for us lucky winners who get to buy it all.)
You can read the details here - and more here - but here's how it'll look in practice. Once you get up to bat in the EPIC waiting room, you enter your Member ID and last name like always, the people you're buying for, and then you see a badge grid, seen here. If you want every badge possible, just check Preview Night and all other badges are clicked for you. Otherwise, just check the days you want. But you can't check Preview Night on its own or just do Saturday and Preview Night- it's still all or nothing. Somehow that option didn't get factored into the quest for "flexibility."
So how much will this change anything? Will it be as annoying and complicated as it sounds? It probably won't be much worse - "I have a Preview Night badge" is the new "I have a four-day badge" - though sometimes these announcements feel like CCI is just endlessly trolling us, seeing how much we can take.
I'll post more about pre-reg tomorrow. Right now I'll let you absorb this news.
So how does this stop us from getting badges for different days, like Thursday and Sunsay.. that's going to make out if town people spend money on hotels for no reason.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't stop that possibility - but that's always been a problem. If you're flying in and staying at a hotel, and you only have Sunday and Thursday badges, then yes, you'll have to pony up for three or four nights in a hotel for only two days of Con. This happened to many people in previous years. This year's changes, however, should at least cut down on that happening within families and groups of friends.
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