No Surprise: No San Diego Comic-Con Badge Resale for 2017

In news that should be a surprise to no one (but is still news), Comic-Con International confirmed today what has basically been the policy for years: That there will be no Badge Resale of returned badges for San Diego Comic-Con 2017, meaning if you don’t have a badge by the time Open Registration sells out this weekend, you’re not going to Comic-Con.

From the Toucan Blog, here’s the exact wording:

Q: If I am unable to purchase a Comic-Con badge on April 8, will there be another sale?

A: There will not be another sale. If you are unable to purchase a badge, we encourage you to try again in 2018.

The last Badge Resale occurred in in 2013. Beginning in 2014, according to CCI, there just haven’t been enough refunds and cancellations to hold the sale again. When badges are this hard to get, and demand is this high, most want to hold onto their golden ticket. Here was the reasoning, circa 2014:

In past years Comic-Con International has been able to hold a sale of returned and unallocated badges in June. Unfortunately, due to an extremely low rate of refunds and cancellations this year, we are not able to hold a resale of Comic-Con 2014 badges. Thank you for your support and understanding.

There’s still a very faint glimmer of hope for those hoping to attend SDCC 2017 who aren’t lucky this weekend, though. There are a few contests, like the IDW one announced today, which will send lucky grand prize winners to the convention. For everyone else — make sure you’re signed up for a Member ID so that you’re eligible to participate in 2018.

from San Diego Comic-Con Unofficial Blog http://sdccblog.com/2017/04/no-surprise-no-san-diego-comic-con-badge-resale-for-2017/
via http://sdccblog.com/2017/04/no-surprise-no-san-diego-comic-con-badge-resale-for-2017/

Report: ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ to Land at San Diego Comic-Con 2017?

It’s getting to be that time of year again, when we hear about exclusives and potential panels for San Diego Comic-Con. And while it’s not confirmed (but also not surprising), it looks like the upcoming CBS All Access Star Trek: Discovery could be landing at this summer’s convention.

In a recent interview with Philadelphia Gay News, actor Anthony Rapp mentioned that the series is “supposed to do Comic-Con”.

Here’s the excerpt (emphasis ours) from PGN:

PGN: Your career alternates between theater and film. What can you say about your roles on Broadway and the big screen? Are you always looking to reinvent yourself?

AR: I don’t think of it in terms of reinvention. I’ve been fortunate to do interesting projects. I haven’t done a huge number of films and TV shows. I’m proud of what I’ve done with “bwoy,” and other small films I’ve made. They are collaborative and creative and outside of the pressures of the [industry]. I’m just getting my feet wet in the “Star Trek” experience, and that’s the biggest machine I will be a part of. We’re supposed to do Comic-Con. I helped establish BroadwayCon, and that’s the biggest experience like that I’ve had so far. But this is a going to be a bigger event and have an international aspect. I’m curious to see how it’s going to manifest itself — how many countries and cultures I’m going to experience.

While that’s not outright confirmation that we’ll be getting a Star Trek: Discovery panel, it’s a very likely sign.

Last year, to celebrate the series 50th anniversary, fans were treated to a Hall H panel full of familiar faces, including William Shatner, Scott Bakula, Michael Dorn, Jeri Ryan, and Brent Spiner – as well as the first reveal of Star Trek: Discovery‘s full name. We’d expect them to pull out all of the stops again for the series, and with a cast that includes Rapp, Jason Isaacs, Doug Jones, Sonequa Martin-Green, Rainn Wilson, and others, it could be another full stage.

Are you excited about a potential Star Trek: Discovery panel at San Diego Comic-Con? Let us know in the comments.

from San Diego Comic-Con Unofficial Blog http://sdccblog.com/2017/04/report-star-trek-discovery-to-land-at-san-diego-comic-con-2017/
via http://sdccblog.com/2017/04/report-star-trek-discovery-to-land-at-san-diego-comic-con-2017/

Her Universe Brings Style to SDCC for Fourth Annual Fashion Show

Ashley Eckstein’s popular geek-themed clothing line, Her Universe, and Hot Topic are returning to San Diego Comic-Con this summer to bring a little extra style to the event. The two companies are once again teaming up for the4th Annual Her Universe Fashion Show.

The annual event pairs fashion and fandom, offering budding designers the chance to show off both their designing skills as well as their pop culture loves. Last year’s event featured designs inspired by everything from Star Wars, Marvel, Harry Potter, Wonder Woman, and much more.

For 2017, amateur fashion designers will once again be able to submit their pieces, inspired by geek culture, to compete for a chance to show off their final designs in the live show, set to take place in on Thursday, July 20 at the Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel (no time announced, but odds are high it will be at 6PM).

Finalists will compete at the live event, with the winner(s) being selected to be a guest designer with Her Universe to develop a collection to be sold at Hot Topic.

Submissions are being accepted through April 19, and the top contestants will be selected and announced by April 30.

You can find the full list of rules on the Her Universe contest page.

from San Diego Comic-Con Unofficial Blog http://sdccblog.com/2017/04/her-universe-brings-style-to-sdcc-for-fourth-annual-fashion-show/
via http://sdccblog.com/2017/04/her-universe-brings-style-to-sdcc-for-fourth-annual-fashion-show/

Traveling Stories and IDW Publishing Want to Send You to Comic-Con 2017

In years past, we’ve reported on contests that whisk lucky winners to sunny San Diego to attend SDCC. This year is no different, as contest announcements are beginning to surface. Local San Diegans IDW Publishing and Traveling Stories dropped a big contest announcement today with their “Ultimate San Diego Comic-Con Experience.”

We're teaming up with #comiccon2017 & @IDWPublishing to make your dreams come true! Enter here> https://t.co/5SCv1ohYPj
Every $ is an entry! pic.twitter.com/WObunjr19B

— Traveling Stories (@TrvlingStories) April 4, 2017

From now until 11:00AM PT June 14, you’ll have the chance to enter to win:

• Round trip airfare for 2 within the continental United States
• Hotel accommodations for 2
• 2 four-day passes to San Diego Comic-Con
• 2 tickets to the Wynonna Earp Cast Party
• Meet-n-Greet with Kevin Eastman, the co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
• A collection of comic books curated by IDW’s CEO & Publisher, Ted Adams

While not officially confirmed, that also makes it very likely that the cast of Wynonna Earp will be at San Diego Comic-Con, likely with a panel, autograph signings at the IDW booth, and more. That’s good news for Earpers.

If that sounds like an amazing deal, it is. What’s more, in reading the fine print of the contest rules, there don’t appear to be any geographic restrictions on who can enter – so yes, Mark Searby, you can enter. Granted, the contest will only provide round trip airfare within the continental US, but if you can get this far from overseas, it sounds they’ll take you from there.

How do you enter? It’s pretty simple. Each entry is a donation to Traveling Stories, non-profit organization that encourages kids to fall in love with reading. It’s a raffle-style entry, so the more you donate, the more “tickets” you’ll get.

If money is tight and you don’t feel like donating but still want to enter the contest, they are accepting entries on 3″x5″ index cards. Each card will need to be hand-written clearly in ink with the title “Win the Ultimate San Diego Comic-Con Experience Drawing Ticket Request” and your complete name, street address, city, state, zip code, telephone number, email address and date of birth (mm/dd/yyyy). You can send the card along with a self-addressed stamped envelope set to arrive no later than 12PM PT on June 13, 2017, to:

Traveling Stories
Attn: Win the Ultimate San Diego Comic-Con Experience Drawing
1761 Hotel Circle South #225
San Diego, CA 92108

Traveling Stories is shooting for a goal of $30,000 – and in the event they raise less than that amount, they’ll instead split the money they do receive with the grand prize winner.

Enter now to win.

Are you hoping you win the grand prize? Let us know in the comments.

from San Diego Comic-Con Unofficial Blog http://sdccblog.com/2017/04/traveling-stories-and-idw-publishing-want-to-send-you-to-comic-con-2017/
via http://sdccblog.com/2017/04/traveling-stories-and-idw-publishing-want-to-send-you-to-comic-con-2017/

Gentle Giant San Diego Comic-Con Exclusives

Gentle Giant has been known for having some of the finest crafted San Diego Comic-Con exclusives each year — serving up quality pieces that are filled with nostalgia (and typically more than a few Star Wars offerings).

Let’s take a look at what has been announced:

[UPDATE April 4]

As first reported by Star Wars Toy News, Gentle Giant will be offering a Star Wars Han Solo McQuarrie Concept 1:6 scale mini bust, and a Jumbo Dianoga Trash Monster figure. While these two items are convention exclusives that will also be shared with at least Star Wars Celebration later this month, you’ll also be able to get your hands on both of these at San Diego Comic-Con (as Gentle Giant confirmed on Twitter).

2017 Premier Guild Members will be able to pre-order both later this week, which is also presumably when we’ll get pricing information. We’ll update when we get more.

From Star Wars Toy News, here’s a look at the figures:

Will you be picking these up at San Diego Comic-Con? Let us know in the comments.

from San Diego Comic-Con Unofficial Blog http://sdccblog.com/2017/04/gentle-giant-san-diego-comic-con-exclusives/
via http://sdccblog.com/2017/04/gentle-giant-san-diego-comic-con-exclusives/

Cryptozoic San Diego Comic-Con 2017 Exclusives

Now that WonderCon is behind us, it’s time to turn our full attention to San Diego Comic-Con — and with badge and hotel sales happening so late this year, it can be easy to forget just how close the convention really is. So close, in fact, that we’ll get our first San Diego Comic-Con exclusive pre-sale this week, courtesy of Cryptzoic Entertainment.

Cryptozoic will be offering SDCC exclusive DC Comics Bombshells, the Golden Goddess Series. There are three vinyl figures in the series, including Harley Quinn, Wonder Woman, and Catwoman. Each figure is limited to 250 pieces, and will retail for $40 each, or $100 for all three.

You’ll be able to get your hands on all three on Tuesday, April 4, on Cryptozoic’s website (the link isn’t live yet), though we’re unsure of the time they’ll go live. It’s also unclear yet if these will be for pick-up at the convention, or available through another method. We’ll update as we get more.

Here’s a look at the figures:

Will you be making this your first San Diego Comic-Con 2017 exclusives purchase? Let us know in the comments.

from San Diego Comic-Con Unofficial Blog http://sdccblog.com/2017/04/cryptozoic-san-diego-comic-con-2017-exclusives/
via http://sdccblog.com/2017/04/cryptozoic-san-diego-comic-con-2017-exclusives/

BREAKING: Hollywood Abandoning San Diego Comic-Con

Get used to the site of Hall H without tents

San Diego Comic-Con – the pop culture juggernaut founded in 1970 – will look a lot differently this year. In shocking news this morning, the Hollywood studios have announced they are all abandoning the convention.

“Twentieth Century Fox started the trend last year by skipping the convention, and when we really thought about it, we realized that promoting our films to fans didn’t make sense any more,” Sony President Philip McCracken said in a statement. “Plus, the traffic really sucks.”

The decision comes in part due to Comic-Con’s lack of ability to predict box office winners. Films like Scott Pilgrim vs. the World were beloved by attendees, but proved too niche for the box office. More recent offerings haven’t always fared much better.

“We spent more time and energy on bringing Fantastic Four to Comic-Con than we did on the script,” Twentieth Century Fox President Johnathan J. Jonathon told us. “We’re working now on reworking our priorities.”

Marvel Studios Vice President Aenus Crawbadger issued a statement stating, “We know fans have worried each year whether we’ll show up or not. Well, now you know. We’ll see you at D23.”

Vocal fans have been complaining for years that the convention has become “too Hollywood”, and for many, this is good news.

“It all started with Twilight,” Emily Orchid, an attendee who lined up at 3AM on Thursday morning last year for Sunday’s Supernatural panel, explained to us in an interview. “They just created this whole camping culture, and you don’t get to enjoy anything anymore at the convention. I really just wish there were just comics and smaller panels now.”

Other attendees agreed. “I showed up a whole hour early for Marvel last year, and couldn’t even get in,” attendee Chuck Upness told us. “That’s ridiculous.”

While this will be a big change, Comic-Con International is hopeful about this new direction. Dale Glanzer, who has taken over the convention as of this morning, realizes that there is a small subset of fans who will be unhappy with the shift in tone this year – but he promises that they still plan to have an action-packed programming schedule for 2017.

“We’ve got a lot of great panels lined up this year, like “Fridge Art For Discerning Gentlemen”, “The Triumphant Return of the Spirograph”, “For the Love of Windmills”, “DC’s New Comic Superteam: The Convadium”, and “Twitter: How 140 Characters Ruins Media” – though that last one may be too mainstream for some,” Glanzer said. “We’ve also got a 100-hour-marathon of  live knitting planned.”

Glanzer also said they’ll be combining some panels to fit more on the schedule. “For example, the Removing Pop from Pop Culture, and the Removing Culture from Pop Culture panels are now one, Removing Pop Culture,” Glanzer said.

Attendees can also look forward to Hall H being renovated for slam poetry readings, and Ballroom 20 will be a 24/7 open mic. Ballroom 6BCF will be open for spontaneous interpretive dance, and the lawn behind the convention center will be re-purposed for a smaller-scale Burning Man type event.

The playback room is being brought back to show Hall H and Ballroom 20 panels from past years. “This should allow those who still want to see movie and TV panels to get their fix,” Glanzer said. “We’ve moved it the broom closet on the 2nd floor based on crowd predictions.”

For those worried about how this will affect swag, WB issued a statement that while they won’t be in attendance, they still fully support CCI and will be sending bags once again. We have your exclusive first look at this year’s bag designs:

None of this will effect hotel prices, which are still on track to increase by 55% in 2019.

Are you excited about this year’s changes? Let us know in the comments.

Oh, and APRIL FOOL’S!

from San Diego Comic-Con Unofficial Blog http://sdccblog.com/2017/03/breaking-hollywood-abandoning-san-diego-comic-con/
via http://sdccblog.com/2017/03/breaking-hollywood-abandoning-san-diego-comic-con/