Comic-Con, one fan gamely told a top Con official, should be renamed “line-con.”
Knowing laughter followed in a room filled with attendees Sunday afternoon, eager to get their chance to vent, rant — occasionally praise — and make suggestions about San Diego’s biggest convention.
John Rogers, president of Comic-Con International’s board of directors, responded, half-joking: “I thought we were running a Comic-Con convention, but we’re running lines.”
As the pop culture confab wrapped up its sold-out, four-day gathering that draws 130,000 attendees and transforms the Gaslamp Quarter into a mega entertainment playground, organizers held their annual “Comic-Con talkback” session to solicit feedback, good or bad, from the fans.
Rogers, taking notes throughout, was patient but circumspect, frequently refraining from offering clear-cut solutions. Not surprisingly, the infamously long lines to get into the more than 6,000-seat capacity Hall H were a common complaint, with several of the fans suggesting that the popular celebrity panels promoting TV shows and films be shown in a separate room or streamed on the web.
Many fans this year chose to camp out overnight or arrive in the predawn hours in hopes of seeing cast members from “Game of Thrones” and “Breaking Bad” or to see up close film stars like Sandra Bullock, Hugh Jackman and the occasional surprise celeb, like this year’s Tom Cruise, there to talk up their upcoming movies.
“Last year I got in line for Hall H at 6 a.m. I did get in, but it seems like every year you have to get in line earlier and earlier, and I think that’s unacceptable,” said Papool Chaudhari, who traveled from Texas for the convention. “San Diego should move to a three-tier system with the first tier reserved seating, and you sell separate badges. The other 3,000 seats camp out, and with the revenue you get (from selling reserved seats), use that for live simulcasts and exclusive footage at other locations.”
While Rogers could not say what might change to address the Hall H issue, he said he’s well aware of fans’ frustrations.
“We look at all this stuff every year, and what you propose would be a very different model we’d have to think about,” he said as a long line of attendees waited for their turn at the microphone. “It’s hard to say what we’ll do next year. We’ve discussed a lot of different ideas for Hall H, and a lot of them didn’t go forward, and I’m sure we’ll talk about that again. I had an idea of a wireless simulcast, but not sure it’s possible.
“And no, I don’t think it’s a great thing that everyone camps out. I wouldn’t want to do it.”
The annual scramble to purchase badges to the always sold-out convention was also very much on the minds of fans who wondered if there isn’t a better, fairer system than everyone going online the minute that ticket sales open. One fan suggested a preferential system for longtime convention-goers, who have been attending long before it became “Hollywood 2,” as he put it.
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