San Diego Comic Con 2014 Pre Registration IS HERE

In our previous badge sale post we gave people tips on how things usually run and now we’ve got all the official details.  Before getting to nitty gritty I want to advise people that this is for Pre-registration ONLY.  In order to be eligible for this sale you must have attended Comic Con in 2013.  Everyone you will be buying for on that day needs to meet this requirement as well.

As this information has only been released in conjunction with “pre-registration” there’s no guarantee that general sales will function exactly the same way, but chances are good that they’ll be quite similar.  If you aren’t eligible for pre-registration you’ll still benefit from this knowledge, but you should definitely pay attention to subsequent information released for your specific sale.  They could make changes.

With that said, look at this lovely video that Comic Con gave us:

Let’s break this down, shall we?

First of all, you can buy badges for up to three people total.  What isn’t mentioned in the video, but has been confirmed elsewhere, is that you don’t have to be one of those three people.  That means if your friend further up in line gets you a badge you can use your spot in line for three completely new people.  The only requirement is that all three of those people had to have purchased Comic Con 2013 badges.  Be sure you have everyone’s Member ID and last name ready.  If you don’t have a Member ID you most likely didn’t attend Comic Con 2013 with a purchased regular admission badge and not eligible for this sale.  Sorry about that.

Secondly, the Landing Page starts at 7am PST on Saturday.  In order to enter the waiting room you’ll need to enter a code that you should get about 48 hours prior to the sale.  Be sure to check your email.  Don’t forget your junk folder.  The last thing you want is this vital email getting flagged as spam.  Logging in with a unique code means that, unfortunately, the good old days of logging in from multiple devices for a better shot at getting a badge are over.  You only have one shot per ID now, guys.  Do not mess it up.  Do not hit the back button.  Do not refresh.  Do not pass go.  Do not collect $200.

Up next is the Waiting Room.  Read everything on that page like your life depends on it.  Don’t refresh that page.  Don’t hit the back button.  Everyone on the landing page will get assigned a random spot in the waiting room so arriving at 7am doesn’t give you an advantage at all.  Getting a good spot in the waiting room will just depend on a fair amount of luck.  Thankfully this is pre-registration so the pool will be much smaller than it is during resale, but badges still sell out.  May the odds be ever in your favor.

The actual Purchase process works a little differently this year.  You need to put an eligible Member ID and last name in, then select how many badges you are purchasing before you ever actually put in the information on each individual badge.  The video emphasizes that selecting the number of badges is vital and that you can’t redo this, so click carefully.  After that it’s pretty self explanatory.  You put in Member ID’s, last names, and badge types.  They will validate that everyone is eligible, so trying to sneak in a non-eligible person is just not going to work.  Sorry.

A major different this year is that you have to use only one debit or credit card for the entire purchase.  Last year we were able to split it up onto different cards.  Plan with your group in advance.  Be sure that someone has enough money to buy for everyone in your group.  If not you’ll have to purchase them individually and by the time everyone in your group gets to the front of the line badges may be sold out.  If nobody in your group can afford to buy at least three badges I’d start transferring funds around now.

Do not click your back button or refresh at any point in this process.  If you do, fire will rain down upon you and you will most likely lose your badge.  Don’t do it.

Overall this entire process seems fairly easy.  The random lottery for spots in the waiting room concerns, but that’s really the only part of the whole ordeal I find remotely troubling.  Everything else seems either close enough to last year to not be too confusing or a logical step in the right direction.  Hopefully by limiting the amount of devices trying to access the room and making sure everyone that’s in the waiting room is eligible we’ll have significantly less instances of the White Screen of Death.  That white screen caused lots of heartache last year.  Let’s hope this year will be different.

Good luck everyone!

Comic Con International: Masterpost

Author: Angel Wilson

Angel is the admin of The Geekiary and a geek culture commentator. They earned a BA in Film & Digital Media from UC Santa Cruz. They have contributed to various podcasts and webcasts including An Englishman in San Diego, Free to Be Radio, and Genre TV for All. They identify as queer.

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