[SDCC] SDCC 2011: Days Four and Five Ramblin'…

So, with #sdcc coming to close for 2011 time to look back and see what happened this year.

Day Four was spent on the dealer’s room floor walking from one end of the convention floor to the other wandering up and down the isles. Managed to get a few good pictures as you can see from the twitter/instagram feeds.
Stylin’ Online did something smart this year and spread themselves out across three booths. Whether this was done because a few dealers pulled out or because Stylin’ decided on it. The divide and conquer strategy should have been employed with other companies.
Most of the panels on Saturday I avoided and in the end the Nerdist Podcast with Matt Smith and Karen Gillian was the highlight of the entire convention.
The Podcast was sold out and for good reason: we managed to fill up all of 4th and B. Chris Hardwick warmed us up and introduced the people who would be on the podcast, one of them being Wil Wheaton. The conversations I will not repeat here, once the Podcast drops you can listen for yourselves. Anyone averse to sailor talk should go watch to Bambi.
Matt and Karen arrived and the rest of the evening went smoothly. Until Wil dropped to the stage after shaking Karen’s hand. The Q+A Session was probably one of the better ones, the fans asked some interesting questions without gushing and we had the arrival of the Moffat Muppet which was probably the best prop on stage just so Matt could assault Karen with it.
I would love to say I stayed to get burritos served to me by the duo but I took one look at the crowd and left.
Day Five was see if I could re-pack everything I had brought with me plus two items I had bought: Saffron Poster from Quantum Mechanix Booth and the Tardis Bobble Head. And thankfully, it worked out.
Twitter feeds continued to report about line length and about Sunday’s pre-reg tickets were sold out. I’d like to thank San Diego Comic Con planners for deciding for me that I won’t be coming back next year.
My main problem with the entire con had managed to vanish on Sunday: No lines. In fact, the mass exodus to the airport had already begun. I managed to walk into the Allen Gregory panel with Jonah Hill and got a seat for the Science Fiction panel that would have been more interesting I feel if: A. The authors credits weren’t read by so slowly by moderator even if they were tongue and cheek and B. If there were less people on the panel since the Q+A lasted for 2 questions.
While that panel went on scrolling through the #doctorwho hashtag showed the panel that most people sat through Glee and Supernatural to see was progressing well.
One trip to the Fed Ex store and boarding passes were printed out.
Kansas City BBQ was the last place on the list and turned out to be quite deserted since everyone was still in the Doctor Who panel or otherwise jamming TSA lines.
So, overall what can San Diego do to avoid the problems from this year?
Well, it’s not what San Diego Comic Con can do, it’s more of what San Diego Convention Center can do: 1. Installing tables, chairs and/or benches outside the rooms and against the walls. People sitting on the floor next to wall outlets with their AC adaptors plugged in is depressing. Instead if you do what Samsung did in Newark Airport with recharging stations.
Comic Con needs to be dragged kicking and screaming into the podcast era. Podcasts or videotape the panels and upload it to iTunes/Youtube so they can handle the strain.
I hope the disaster that was the pre-reg ticket lines will have the Comic Con folks looking at different way to allow for sign ups since the only way to get tickets this year was to sleep over and wait for the room to open.
As for the gear I brought: the camera adaptor for the iPad worked just fine with the Canon just as it did last year. Uploading pictures was a breeze, the only downside being CNN iReport SDCC 2011 Assignment tag kept crashing out my iPhone app. The Booq Message Bag I had gotten worked out well. I might try a messenger bag that covers both the Pad and the camera together next time.
So, the question for 2012 is which con to go to: Seattle for Emerald City, San Francisco for Wondercon or Phoenix Comic Con. The idea being go to the con with some good author panels because San Diego is total lost if the conditions here continue.
One final word on pictures, if anyone is looking for better pictures without the filters from Instagram, my Flickr Feed will be updated once I get home.
Now, off to the Hard Rock to grab a t-shirt I won’t have to stand in line for…