DAY ONE... cont'd
Today we decided to try our traditional parking lot on the other side of town. The price was a bit more expensive than the lot from the day before--- $15--- but there was a Con shuttle bus stop right by the lot, and it’s the first stop on the shuttle’s circular route back to the Convention Center. Keep in mind that the term “shuttle” might give the wrong impression. These are full size charter buses with windshield wipers that sweep pedestrians out of the way. On the San Diego streets, they’re the equivalent of Optimus Prime wading through a sea of Mini-Coopers.
As veterans of this shuttle route, we knew what to expect: we’d line up with other folks at the stop, board the bus and find a seat. The bus would proceed to the next scheduled stop (near a Holiday Inn), where a small army of people were waiting to board. The driver would get out, unholster his sidearm, and explain to the crowd that he only had five vacant seats, and the rest of the folks would have to wait for the next bus (that would also have only five vacant seats). Then the driver would hop back in and pull away quickly before the crowd could organize and overturn the bus… while those of us who had a seat would shake our heads at the injustice of it all.
So we were a bit surprised this year when justice reared its ugly head and the shuttle operators decided to limit the number of people who could board at the first stop. Since Ben and Sam and I were behind 25 other people in line, we didn’t make the first seating, and now we were as pitiful as the folks down the block near the Holiday Inn. We actually considered walking till our sanity overpowered our outrage.
Consequently, we were a little late arriving at the Convention Center, and didn’t connect with Alan in the Exhibition Hall till around 11 am. We got to stroll around with him in the Exhibition Hall for a while, and our paths crossed at one of the panels, but it’s hard to count it as “quality time” with a friend when you’re standing in the equivalent of an 8 acre cocktail party. Thankfully, the Con isn’t the only time I get to see my friend.
The main dilemma of any Comic-Con attendee is scheduling: what to do and when to do it. And there are three main areas that compete for attention:
1. The aforementioned Exhibition Hall, which contains the booths of all the cash-paying exhibitors. These booths range from something you might see at your average flea-market (including the fleas) to incredibly elaborate set-ups run by the major publishers and studios. Fox, Warner Brothers, Mattel, Lego, CapCom, Marvel, DC, Sony… these are just a fraction of the exhibitors represented in a room so large it could be seen from space if it weren’t covered up by people. Journalists generally try to express its size in terms of football fields, a unit of measure that leaves your average comic-book fan scratching his head.
2. The panel rooms on the upper level. At any given time during the day, there are about 13 simultaneous presentations or panels going on up here, featuring creators in all areas of pop culture… but primarily comic books and comic-book-related subjects.
3. Hall H and Ballroom 20, which, respectively, contain seating for about 6500 and 5000 people. Hall H usually features the presentations by the major movie studios in order to generate buzz about upcoming projects, so the programs there will feature A-list celebrities and directors and include first-time sneak-peeks of movies in the works. Ballroom 20 serves much the same purpose for television shows and stars… unless the show gets so popular it warrants a move to Hall H (like Lost did this year).
Usually Hall H and Room 20 are so popular that if there’s something you want to see there, you might as well line up for the first program of the day, and once you’re inside, park yourself in a seat till that event finally rolls around. It’s a good strategy for folks who want to see a lot of celebrities. But keep in mind that it takes hours and a billy club to traverse the Exhibition Hall, which has all sorts of cool stuff and interesting people in it, so time spent in Hall H can seriously cut into the time required to fully appreciate the Exhibition Hall. And the upstairs panels can offer some real interesting one-on-one conversations with creators that you might never see or hear from elsewhere. Deciding what to do becomes Sophie’s choice, if you take out the life-and-death aspect, the emotional crippling, the Academy Award… okay, it’s nothing like Sophie’s Choice, but it’s can be a dilemma, nonetheless.
All material copyright 2009 Chuck Thornton