It's time to be practical and pick an Early Bird room

22 JANUARY 2020

The Early Bird sale is live! Most of you already know what that is and how you feel about it; this blog post is for the rest of you.

Tender young first-timers have no idea of how grim the SDCC hotel lottery really is. All of the special luck and positive karma you normally have will fail you during that lottery, even if you lead a charmed life otherwise. A very few people wind up with downtown cream of the crop rooms; most get a distant room or nothing at all. There's the waitlist, there's the wrangling and trading and dealing of rooms that go on between attendees, but by and large it's just a horrendous and devastating process.

But then there's Early Bird. This opportunity - unsung, unloved but immensely useful - lets you book a room now. You need to pay up front and it's nonrefundable. The room won't be downtown but it will be on the shuttle route. You can book it and settle back, serene and secure from now until July, while the rest of us crawl over broken glass through hell. Just be aware: the Early Bird option will only stay live for a few weeks and then shut down before the lottery. So you can't wait and see how you do, then grab a room. You have to choose now. It's a quintessential Comic-Con dilemma, isn't it?

My hotel pick for Early Bird is once again Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina. It's a very quick shuttle ride up Harbor (just 3 miles so any Ubering isn't going to kill your wallet either) and you'll still feel reasonably close to the action. This hotel is better than what many of you will get in the lottery - so please consider it.

You can book your Early Bird room here.

Clarification on ECCC photo ops and autographs

25 MARCH 2015




If you're intent on getting pictures and autographs at Emerald City this weekend, you might be confused by the different rules on what's free, what costs money, what's appropriate and what's not. Luckily they've provided some clarity on the different categories.

Comic Book Writers and Artists

There's no special procedure for this; if you spot them in the wild or track them down at their booths, you're free to ask for either a photo or an autograph. Some may charge but most won't.

Authors

These are the writers in the Writers Block area and they'll have specific signing times. They won't charge.

Celebrities

This where we get into formal Photo Ops. You can see the prices here for those. There's also a schedule for autographs and you can bring your own item or have them sign a printed photo. All of this is for a fee.

Note: if you want to buy a Photo Op on site, you'll need to stand in line to buy it, then stand in line for the photo session - and you'll have to pay cash. So you want to skip the first line and/or pay with a credit card, buy online.

Voice Actors

They too have signing sessions for a fee. The official Photo Op machine isn't in place, but you can take a picture with your phone at their table - and yes, there's a cost for that too.


To break it down even more, writers and artists are mostly free, actors are not. And you'll need to do a certain amount of research on all of them to figure out where they're going to be. Finally, be aware that you can't take pictures in the Media area.

ECCC photo op pre-purchases are live

4 MARCH 2015




If there's one aspect of Emerald City Comicon that seems foreign to me, it's the system of photo ops, autographs, rules and prices. Probably that's because I can't imagine paying someone $60 to write down their name; at the same time, I do understand that many attendees would cut off a toe to get their picture taken with Norman Reedus or Lena Headey. Possibly this is the determining line between nerd and fan.

If you're an ECCC attendee ready to plunk down your cash for a photo, the schedule is up and the pre-sales are live. The most expensive option is the Avengers group photo for $205; the cheapest are a smattering of people like Finn Jones and Clare Kramer for a mere $30. You can see the autograph fees here.

What you get is a professional 8 x 10 lab-quality photograph, printed as soon as it's taken. Photo reprints are $10, digital copies $10, and $5 sleeves are also available for purchase. So if you want to send out that picture of you and Chloe Bennet as your holiday card this December, you can. (I think. Maybe there's a rule about that.)

Autograph Area rules

17 JULY 2014




Autographs are a big deal at Comic-Con. Some people make them a main point of their visit each year and other people ignore the whole shebang until their favorite celebrity is scheduled to appear in the Autograph Area.

It's not as simple as just getting in line and saying hi to Actor X when you get up to bat. For one thing, appearances can change on a dime. For another, there are rules and policies, just like you knew there would be. As such:

• The Autograph Area is open 10-7 on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and 10-5 on Sunday. You'll see it when you get your badge - it's right there in the Sails Pavilion.

• Like so many things at the Con, some autograph lines use a lottery. You have to pick a ticket out a container and it will or it won't have a "winning" stamp on the back. But if you draw a bum ticket, you can go back to the end of the line and pull another one.

• Yes, there are 2-3 lines involved in getting 1 autograph. There's a line for people waiting for the drawings to begin; possibly a separate line for your specific drawing; finally a line to actually get the autograph.

• But even getting an autograph ticket and standing in line doesn't mean you'll get a signature.

• What they will and won't sign: yes, they'll sign your Souvenir Book. Possibly another item instead. But they are free to refuse to sign whatever you propose.

With all of these caveats made, I don't know many people who've had trouble getting an autograph - the whole thing normally goes pretty smoothly. But because it can get crowded, and a celebrity's schedule is always prone to change, CCI wants you to understand that nothing is guaranteed.