This is probably a week or two too late but I might as well talk about it now! I was lucky to attend San Diego Comic Con this year. It was super fun event and I realize a lot of people probably wanted to go this year that weren't as fortunate as I was. So for all those people who didn't get to attend, I'm going to let you see through my eyes as I give you a play by play of my SDCC experience this year with my mother and great aunt.
Day 1 (Thursday)
It started out with us sleeping in for a bit, mainly due to the fact that we left the previous day at four in the morning to arrive at San Diego at a decent time, which was nice.
We rode the train into town, which is a lovely alternative to driving and parking there, but be warned that a lot of other people think this is a good idea as well. It gets crowded very quickly.
Upon arrival, and waiting a serious amount of time in line for our badge (lines are a constant at SDCC), my aunt and I discovered we had just enough time to try and make it to our first panel, which was "The Art of Moana." It turns out I was too cocky though as I came upon the line to discover from the line workers that there was no chance in Hades we were going to make it. With my head sagging in disappointment we decided to head to room 7AB for our next panel on our to-do list, but on our way there, in passing down the hallway, I was about a foot a way from the voice of Moana herself, Auli'i Cravalho. I may have nerded out just a bit.
Our next panel was the "Spotlight on Sarah J. Maas" (Author of the "Throne of Glass" series) but to make sure we would make it, we actually arrived to the room early and sat in on the panel beforehand. That's the fun thing about Comic Con, you can sit in one room and just camp out there for the whole day. Now back to the subject of Sarah J. Maas first of all the woman looks like Jennifer Lawrence and I can't be the only one who see's it right?
Second she is a complete dork in the most lovable way. Not only is she a fantastic writer but I now have a total friend crush on her. Especially with our mutual love of "Harry Potter." As far as I can remember there wasn't any major new news about her books but it was a lovely discussion about them. At the end of it, I really wanted to approach her and her panel moderator, Christine Riccio (a YouTuber who vlogs about books and her major love of them), to tell them how much I admire them but then I saw the line and got kinda nervous knowing I might possibly just sputter and say things I wouldn't remember saying so I kinda just slyly glided past it towards the exit. Hopefully if any of the read this let me just say you guys rocked that panel and I think that both of you are awesome.
Now one slight thing I forgot to mention is that my mother was not able to attend the Sarah J. Maas panel with us so I asked her to save seats for us for the next major panel of the day, "Teen Wolf!" Of course she got there quite bit early but she had guaranteed us some seats upon arrival. Now when my aunt and I arrived we were still two panels early. However, that's not to say the panels we saw weren't enjoyable. We saw CBS "MacGyver" and Guillermo Del Toro's "The Strain" (which I honestly will be watching. Any TV show that gets Filch from "Harry Potter" to rap as a joke video has my interest and I'm still singing"Vamps, BOOM"! Trust me it was awesome). Also side note: if you do go to SDCC, don't diss the snack bar food. We ate a very yummy salad and Frito pie there for lunch. Finally though, the MTV's "Teen Wolf" panel had arrived and it had an interesting start, and by interesting I mean the show's star, Tyler Posey doing a "Flashdance" dance on the stage.
Not that I am complaining. Some things we learned though is that this season will be "Teen Wolf"'s final season with episode count of 100 episodes all together, and I have to say from the trailer it looks like it's going to be a good one. I mean it's got cowboy villains so it'll probably be cool (fingers crossed)!
Right after the panel I had the opportunity to actually run into Christine Riccio again as I saw here hanging out with her friend from YouTube, Sasha Alsberg (author of "Zenith") who I also am a fan of. This time I decided I was going to be brave as I approached them and then I just told them how much I love their videos and use their book recommendations all the time to find my next book to read. They were both super nice and I was very glad that I got to tell them what I said. Oh, and I also told them to tell there other friend Natasha I was a fan of hers as well so hopefully that went through to her.
We got to eat real food afterwards as we trekked to Joe's Crab Shack in the setting sun, which had strangely sticky tables.
Finally we decided to end our day as we headed back to the main hall to check out the little exhibits. My favorite was the WB one where you got to do magic like in Harry Potter for "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them." I also purchased a very cute "Sherlock" shirt at the BBC America booth.
Day 2 (Friday)
On this day I decided to wear my Hogwarts uniform (Gryffindor BTW) and visit the outside exhibits. If you are not able to actually attend the con and you live in the area, these are some cool places to check out. Basically TV shows and networks will have exhibits that you can play around in for free.
The first one we stopped by was for NBC's "Timeless"—a show about time traveling. It was fun, even though it had a kind of long wait, but first we got our time traveler's picture done and rode on a "time machine" aka that spinny spaceship everyone throws up on, on the fair, but still it was super fun.
NBC's "The Good Place" offered free frozen yogurt and who can say no to frozen yogurt?
We got to attend the CW's "The 100" panel, which was excellent even though I'm a whole season behind but still I'm glad I got to attend.
Afterwards, I traipsed through Adult Swim's carnival by the already growing Saturday's Hall H line at two in the afternoon. The first thing we went into was this weird, but air conditioned dome in the shape of a meatball. One of the first things you see when you entered was this.
It only got weirder from there as they asked to lay down if we wanted to and experience the meatball dome. This was a strange motion sickness-inducing thing that left me very confused at the end of it. However, seeing as it was a carnival, we went and played some games like Plinko and whatnot, by the end of it all we won a (cough cough) veiny and bulbous eggplant pin (yes it was an eggplant in the shape that you think it is), three beach towels with John C. Reilly on them (I'm confused too) and two stuffed animals. They were very generous there. Also it was at this point I had to actually change due to the heat.
We took another final stroll of the hall (knowing it would be super crowded tomorrow) and it was here where we ran into quite a few celebrities. First we passed by the Starz booth for their new show "American Gods." It was here that me and my mom turned into a mush of utter fangirls. It turns out one of the actors from our favorite mom and daughter TV show, "The 100" was no longer going to star on this show. His name is Ricky Whittle and let me just say his character on the show was very dreamy. So as any normal reaction would be upon seeing him was to shout his old character's name like 12 year olds. Yep my mother and I were probably five feet from him going "Lincoln, Lincoln!" So of course I tried to get a picture of him but was then asked to move as Anthony Anderson, of ABC'S "Blackish" passed by us. Finally though I got a pic!
Sadly though, this would be the only successful celeb pic I would be able to take because as it turns out, when I'm geeking out, I can't seem to remember how to use a camera. It was particularly evident when we stumbled upon the "Game of Thrones" cast at the HBO booth. They were now finishing up their signing and were exiting the building. I really didn't want to miss a chance of seeing them in person and getting a picture of a few of the cast members for my dad to geek out over, seeing as we are both fans. The pictures I took were just disasters though. For example, when Isaac Hempstead Wright came out I can say now that I have an excellent picture of his hand in front of his face as he waved to people.
Yes I know I'm quite a pro at photography, hit me up I do senior portraits. A highlight though was my great aunt jumping up and down with excitement shouting "Hodor, Hodor, Hodor!" as Kristian Nairn exited.
Near the end we attempted to attend the panel for "Beauty and the Beast's" 25th anniversary and had false hope in our hearts as we waited in line, but decided to leave as 15 minutes into the actual panel time we decided to leave. The saddest part was seeing all the little girls dressed as Belle wait hopefully in the line to get in.
Day Three (Saturday)
On this day we attended another one of the free entertainments SDCC has to offer which is Nerd HQ (I'll link the info about it and what they're main mission is right here). This year it was located at the San Diego Children's Museum and I also had a fun time there. There were fun free green screen photo ops, free lemonade, free cereal and even free coffee.
If you're into gaming, this is also a good place to check out because they had quite a few gaming demos to check out here.
Then we made our way to the last main event of our trip which was the DC TV show panels. Although the line was maddeningly long (think the Peter Pan ride but with a couple hours long payoff) we actually made it early by seeing NBC's "Grimm" panel right before it all. The first DC panel was for now CW's "Supergirl" and oh my goodness was it fun. The cast seems like such friendly people and like they all enjoy each other's company and it definitely got me hyped for what it has in store (let's hope for lots of crossovers). Plus Tyler Hoechlin (Derek from "Teen Wolf") was there to talk about being the new Superman from the show. Next was "Legends of Tomorrow," a show that I quite enjoy for it's fun action and adventure feel to it but the best part about it was when they were announcing the villains for the next season, out of nowhere appeared "Torchwood"/"Doctor Who"/"Arrow"'s John Barrowman telling everyone "I do have some experience with time travel." The whole theater just freaked out because I mean it's Captain Jack Harkness, The Face of Boe — I'm getting excited remembering it.
The last panel was for "The Flash." It was super fun and now I can say I have also been in the same room as Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton has now officially joined the cast). They released a new trailer which made the next season seem super exciting. Especially since we saw how the last one ended kind of on a cliffhanger.
After that we decided that was a good note to leave on as we headed back to our hotel and said goodbye to San Diego Comic Con.
So that's it, everyone. I hope it gave you a chance to visualize being there and maybe it even inspired you to try and go next year. Either way it's a super fun event that you can't miss if you have the chance to go.
