If you are one of the hundreds of thousands of pop culture fans out there anxiously awaiting the ticket releases for this July’s San Diego Comic-Con then I am glad to tell you that we are now one step closer today as the Member ID Site for regular attendees, press, professionals, volunteers, and trade professionals opens to the public. While creating an account once is good for life, creation of an ID does not guarantee you a ticket but it does allow you to get one step closer but act fast because the member ID system will CLOSE on 2/28/12.
New to 2012, all attendees are required to create a unique ID before the upcoming sale of passes, so if you do not create an account you will not be allowed to access ticket purchases. When I say all attendees, I really mean ALL attendees regardless of a mass ticket purchase. If you want to plan a family trip to Comic-Con and want to make one purchase transaction each person receiving a pass (age 13 and over) needs to have this account created first.
The reasoning behind this change is to ensure that as many people who wish to purchase passes into the event are given a fair shot. It reduces the number of passes an individual is allowed to one. For example, a certain comic creator that I know receives two passes every year; one for press and one for professional. While he does not ask for two pases or (as far as I know) abuse this by selling or giving away his second pass, in the eyes of the ticket sales he is two individuals with the same exact name who qualified for each classification. Multiply little errors like that over one thousand times and they are seeing a loss of $175,000 in potential ticket revenue since four day passes are not $175.
Another issue that the team behind the event struggle with is ticket piracy. As this event has grown in popularity over the past few years and tickets began selling out completely MONTHS ahead of the event, SDCC had begun to see over-inflated ticket sales on the secondary market. Utilizing methods such as eBay, counterfeit badges, and taking advantage of the on-site purchases for the next year’s con, these individuals have made a desperate situation out of a once easily accessible event with people panicing about not being able to get in and resorting to alternative methods as a means to get what they want.
All of that noise aside, this is now the perfect opportunity to really examine if attending this event is something that you would like to do. Sure, 90% of the hotels in the area are not available from 7/10 through 7/16 since they are reserved for the upcoming “Hotel Lotto”, but at least you should be able to find cheap-ish flights into SAN right now for about $440 Round-trip per person from JFK and $229 from LAX, and isn’t that where the real savings lie?
Should you find yourself stuck somewhere the kind folks over at Comic-Con International have produced this small “how to” tutorial.