Anyone going? I want to meet up with people there. Make some new friends. I'll be going as Black and my bro is gonna be White from Tekkonkinkreet.

Ooh I was looking for a thread on this.

I am! Not into the con but I'll be outside by the Trolley crossing for two days :)

I'll be there on Saturday

What's Trolley crossing?

There are trolley tracks in front of the convention center. There's a lot of space leading up to the tracks where people mull about, so I guess she's referring to that?

I'm a little excited; I'm debuting my new CCS cosplay at Comic Con...but I bet nobody will figure out who I'm supposed to be. My friend went as a lolita last year and most people thought she was Little Bo Peep or something, haha

So how was it?

AAAAWESOOOOME.Except for the security. They were unbelievably strict this year. Even after you were IN the con, they'd come up and check your badge or weapons. Super crowded, too. Overall a good time, though.

I wish BioWare had been in the main hall ;_;

I have an impression that you can't do anything because it's always a long line for anything. Is that right? Is it like sakuracon except bigger?

Well, that's about half-true. You CAN do panels and events, but you have to be willing to wait in line for a couple hours for the really popular ones. I waited in line for two hours last year to see the Big Bang Theory panel and that was fine. This year, I was able to see the Eureka, Warehouse 13, and Assassins Creed: Brotherhood panels without any issue. I didn't really have to wait at all.

You just have to make a priority list and come to terms with the fact that you won't be able to see everything :P

Comic Con is like Sakura-con on steroids. It's a major marketing center for video game developers and film studios. The dealers hall is the length of several football fields. I'd compare it to E3 before Sakura-con.

I'll also argue that the cosplay at Sakura-con is much better than at Comic Con. Sakura-con has a lot more video game and anime cosplay, and the quality seems to be much better. At SDCC, it's usually a lot of girls in spanex. Lots of Marvel costumes and really, really random ensembles. It's more diverse, but I don't necessarily think that the quality is better since there's not a huge focus on it like there is at Sakura-con.

There's also a major size difference. SDCC sees 150,000 people over five days where Sak sees like... what, 16,000?

It was fun, but I still prefer anime conventions like Fanime. But yeah, everything Zalmida said is right...the crowd was super dense, especially inside the exhibit hall. I remember at one point last year there was actually a line to use the escalator. I was able to get into the Capcom panel without a wait, but yeah, for the popular TV shows, you'll have to be there early. There are also a lot of video game exhibitors, so it's also kinda like a mini E3. I know Sony and Nintendo definitely reused their kiosks from E3.

Cosplay is definitely geared more towards Western comics, but there are always a pocketful of anime cosplayers. I notice they tend to congregate in the same areas, too, haha. They were probably mostly local folks who also attended AX. The Comic Con crowd is definitely more casual, too. I was posing for pics as Syaoran from the 2nd CCS movie with my friend, who dressed as Ozai from Avatar: The Last Airbender, because most of the people who took our picture had no idea we weren't a part of the same series, much less who we were dressed as, haha.

But yeah, despite how overcrowded and over saturated it is with Hollywood glitz, I still love the con. Downtown SD is neat place to hang around and there are always other events happening concurrently, like video game music concerts and even a film festival. Great place to be if you're a geek.

If you want to read a comparison with AX to get a good idea of what it's like Liz Ohanesian and Shannon Cottrell did a nice piece on it for the LA Weekly, (actually they did a LOT of Comic Con coverage :) )

http://blogs.laweekly.com/stylecouncil/fandom/comic-con-vs-anime-expo/

Id LOOOOVE to go! Im going to next years though :D! Ive NEVER gone to SDCC! Does anyone know if Disney and/or Pixar was there as well as any other animation companies? Any small animation companies too? Im highly curious of this con lol!

I don't know about this year, but Pixar was definitely there last year. John Lasseter was there as a guest at some panel. He was there with Hayao Miyazaki, too. I waited like 4 hours just to see Miyazaki talk about Ponyo prior to a screening of the film. So worth it...

Disney definitely comes every year. Same is probably true of most major animation studios.

Last year, my boyfriend and I were on an escalator leading to the dealers hall. Elites were late in opening the doors and the crowd was getting too big. They didn't manage the space and all of a sudden, people on the escalator couldn't go anywhere. It just kept dumping people into the floor and it didn't stop. There was a bit of screaming and panicking once people realized that the escalator was basically spitting them into a mob and there was NOWHERE to go. I don't think anyone got hurt, but it just goes to show you how difficult a con like that can be. But really that was only one bad experience. I think they learned from it this year, since doors opened on time and they were letting people in through multiple entrances.

ALL kinds of exhibitors go. From WB to Hasbro, Marvel to Square Enix, to tiny little vendors from the middle of nowhere. If you can afford the booth fee, then you can attend Comic Con.

Disney was there!! They had to be. They were promoting Tron with the model of the cycle and lots and lots of banners.