SAN DIEGO COMIC CON 2024

July 24th - July 28th / San Diego, CA

My first San Diego Comic Con was 2009. For 2024, it was an absolute blast to ride along on Kyle’s first attendance, and seeing things through a newbie’s eyes. He embraced the mayhem in stride and taught this veteran a few things as well.

Wednesday started off with the hellacious drive from Los Angeles to San Diego. As we say around here “Took THE 134, to the THE 5, to THE 805….” We made it just in time for Kyle to run at Olympic Speed onto the floor to the Hasbro booth to snag his Preview Night Exclusive of Star Wars Black Series - Darth Maul with Sith Speeder. Preview nights have even gotten bigger over the years! But no SDCC is complete w/o a trip to Tivoli’s (the oldest bar in Downtown SD) once the floor closes. A great place to meet back up with old pals and new friends. This has been a tradition I follow, as they have stiff drinks, affordable prices and a great neighborhood vibe. There has been many hours in the past at these tables, excitedly recapping the day, formulating game plans and catching up with colleagues. This year did not disappoint.

On Thursday, Kyle truly impressed me by being up before the sun to run down to the Marriott Marquis to get in line for the Dragon Ball Z exclusive pass. I lagged but met up with him later to snag our “I PLAYED DRAGON BALL: SPARKING! ZERO” lanyard (and I was reminded how very VERY bad I am at video games - and how good he is). The Dragon Ball Z activation is an awesome family friendly (no badge needed) activity. They do such a great job with the various elements to make them feel obtainable and in turn - incredibly enjoyable.
In addition, Kyle officially gained the name “KING OF THE FLOOR!”. He ran back into the mayhem to snag his exclusives he woke up so early for.

Thursday was a blast and possibly the busiest of our days! We continued over at Social Tap (fond memories of the 2013 Black Sails party at same location came flooding back to me) for The Op Games Party Games & Whiskey party! This event encompassed everything I love about SDCC. We were welcomed with Whistle Pig cocktails as we bounced around various game tables meeting new people. There were so many laughs as a bunch of us (some we knew, some were new) played TAPPLE AFTER DARK or attempted new languages with for DADADA. Having 10 seconds to come up with a word for “Sexual Positions” that starts with a specific letter in TAPPLE AFTER DARK…let’s just say, PG ratings were not met. The OP Games nailed it by making an event that became an easy ice breaker for attendees to meet and become new fans of their games (the games are so fun!!).

Thursday wrapped up with dancing to Jason Deluo at the Fandom Party. The expanse that is SDCC has no limits. Cosplayers dancing to songs like Wiggle was quite the sight! And the audience was an interesting mix of attendees that were dressed to the nines while the other half was trying to figure out how not to crush their swag bags. It was a surreal experience but proved why so many, try so hard, to attend. I’ll note that I do appreciate the passes are handled by accumulating points to be entered to win, but did notice most attendees appeared to be industry guests. Aside from that, DAMN GREAT SHOW at a wonderful location at the Float in the Hard Rock. I was so caught up in dancing, I sadly totally missed the Deadpool drone show that night (Link HERE).
The only true disappointment of the day was the Focus Features Shaun of the Dead Experience. It was pretty sad. They ran out of all the exclusive branded cans of beer ridiculously early (which you also couldn’t drink because they didn’t get a liqueur license). So most attendees just received a non-branded can of local beer. To add to the frustration, they also sold out of most of the merch, leaving just a couple t-shirts in size small or 3X, a Foree Electric Trucker hat (which I couldn’t figure out why a trucker hat?) and a pair of socks. All overpriced. The line to get in was also chaos, making the online RSVP a bit of a waste of time. Do better Focus Features, I hope you learned from this failure. And high five’s to everyone with early reservations that had the opportunity to score a better experience earlier in the day.

Friday. Oh Friday.
Kyle continued to walk the floor noting “The sheer size of some of the booths was just unbelievable. The Marvel and DC booths were among the booths that were needed to visit while I was there. The Marvel booth had cosplay competitions and costumes set up from Deadpool and Wolverine and Captain America: New World Order!” And I hit the streets to stand in line at the Paramount Lodge. Without the tickets, I waited in stand by. This worked because I got in line early, and was prepared to wait. I ended up waiting about 2 hours. Because I was in line, had some wonderful conversations with others and a man who had done it before gave me some valuable tricks (“Go to the Star Trek area first to get a ticket for a t-shirt, then pizza, then drinks - or they’ll run out”). So I did exactly that! The cosplayers there were mind-blowingly awesome!

Continuing Friday, I was excited to attend the FROM (streaming on MGM/Amazon) panel on the IMDB boat. Season 3 looks so creepy good (check it out - premiering 9.22) while Kyle continued to master the floor and tribbles, “The Star Trek booth was a mini zoo of aliens all centered around an episode of Lower Decks, The Menagerie. At the end of that experience you can take your photo in one of the displays and act like you were being attacked by one of the inhabitants.”

Then wrapping up the day with FX photo ops and XLE PartyPocalypse. XLE had multiple themed nights of parties (Legends of Fantasy, Anti-Hero, etc) that you could purchase tickets through Eventbrite. At $35 a head, it was an affordable and exciting way to continue the evening! The dance floor was jumping with cosplayers decked out in the theme, and a live band playing all the hits. Special shout out to some amazing cosplayers for the introduction to these long standing parties (for fun photos - check out cosplayer @sierramm on instagram).

Saturday we were loosing steam and caffeine was a #1 necessity. I started the day with Kyle back on the floor. Per Kyle, a standout was “The Star Wars booth. It housed many costumes and props from The Acolyte and was playing scenes on a giant screen from different movies and shows.”
We jumped on the IMDB Boat and did the Rings of Power photo op before I ran to the Wynonna Earp panel. That was one of my favorite highlights this year. I fell in love with the show back in 2017 after SDCC introduced me to the wonderfulness of that silly SyFy show. After it’s final season on SyFy a few years back, fans are now SUPER excited for it’s return on Tubi with the 90 minute Vengeance special. We all have high hopes this will mean more seasons to come.

Saturday wrapped at The Penguin Lounge. Boy O Boy did Max do well with this off site. I was truly impressed by the amount of detail both in the location, as in the staff/actors. Every step inside felt like you were deep in the underground trying to snag drugs to get invited into the “secret lair” of criminals. The actors embraced their rolls, interacted with the attendees and provided a fabulous time.

We wrapped up the con Sunday by revisiting booths on the convention floor, grabbing lunch at one of our favorite spots, and braving Sunday traffic back up north. Sunday’s are always the best “Chill” day to just take in the sights. I loved having the time to actually pay attention to the elevators, walls and buildings. It’s also a wonderful day for families to just walk around and admire those monsterous building wraps, store fronts and local shops. We walked away from SDCC2024 very VERY happy geeks indeed.

We hope all our followers have the opportunity to visit. The outside stuff takes work but with some good sleuthing, socials media follows and alerts, emails, memberships, etc. all is possible.
With hard work, comes a full 4 day geek love schedule. Long live the CON-LIFE!