Comic Con Tickets
Playing Hard To Get
People usually get their comic con tickets through online trade. Various ticketing
corporations partner with Comic-Con in selling passes to the biggest comics and pop culture convention around the globe. Purchasing tickets, or more famously called badges, for this event may seem straightforward for a newbie. But the experienced and veteran comic con goers will definitely tell them otherwise. Seeing the trend and facts from past years to 2011, it will just get tougher and tougher to secure a badge.
A flashback to Comic-Con ticket selling history lane
In 2006, some of the 123,000 badge-holders were turned away because of overcrowding. They had to wait for a few hours outside the entry gates just so the event organizers and security could alleviate the congestion that was happening inside. 2007 witnessed around the same attendees, but it was only the first time that Comic-Con experienced selling out of passes.
The comic con tickets were sold, weeks before the July event, at an on-site registration in 2008. Over 126,000 badges were bought during that time. In 2009, there were again around 126,000 attendees. But since the Comic-Con was really starting to gain immense popularity, badges sold out months in advance. During 2010, the convention was already sold out by March 2009. As for the Preview Night, there were no more tickets available by October. 2010 saw 130,000+ fans.
This now leads to the meltdown of Ticketleap, one of the ticketing partners of Comic-Con in the year 2011. On February of the said year, badges were sold for the third time online by Ticketleap. But months had already passed since the tickets for 2011 were put up for sale for the first time. The event just grew and grew more popular. More and more of eager event goers were still haggling for passes. This piloted to the Ticketleap’s website crash from the countless of people being online all at the same time. Rants were all over Twitter on what happened. Good thing was, comic con tickets were successfully sold, and Comic-Con 2011 took place.
Changes in 2012
Unfortunately, things still did not get any easier. The comic con tickets would still need to be purchased online. But, for those who wanted to get badges as early as possible, Comic-Con International held a pre-registration for 4 days last July. But another negative thing about the process was only those who had 2011 badges were the eligible ones for the pre-registration. Adding to insult, ticket prices just went up there. Buying four-day badges without preview night will not present any discount anymore. It also went up to $150 from $105. $40 is now the cost of a single-day ticket compared to $37 of last year. Sunday passes, which used to be at $20, is now worth $23.
For better or for worse
Past attendees should not have any advantage over the individuals who have experienced going to this larger-than-life event. Everybody should have a fair chance of purchasing a pass. The organizers of Comic-Con should also consider creating a system that would make it easier for people to acquire tickets. This is Comic-Con. They do not need to worry about subtracting the chaos that is badge-buying from the actual event just to assure of ticket sales. The fans give them continuous support. Is it that demanding for them to make life less painful for the ‘other’ people who make Comic-Con happen? More than the price tags of comic con tickets, fans just want to enjoy this event that they look forward to each annually.
