This year was my first year attending Comic Con, and while I had a fantastically fun time, the experience itself was also a bit overwhelming and stressful. I had the opportunity to go with one of my childhood friends, Amber, who invited me to stay with her and her husband in north San Diego. Luckily for me, Amber knew to purchase tickets early (we bought them in April). Even so, we were still too late to secure 4-day passes, but we did manage to get a pass for Friday and Saturday. After having this experience, I was actually glad we didn’t get 4-day passes, as I don’t know if I could have handled more than 2 days.

On Friday morning we set out early so we could hunt for parking, which turned out to be a non-issue for us, even at 8:00 a.m. We were able to find parking for $20/day about 4 blocks from the convention center. We didn’t even need to look at the map to find out where we should head – we just followed the huge mass of people on the sidewalks. When we finally saw the convention center, we were greeted by this:

At this point, Amber and I were starting to feel a bit overwhelmed, as we hadn’t been expecting such a huge crowd and weren’t quite sure what we should be doing or where we should be heading. We eventually make it to check-in and got our badges (a very smooth process) and set out to find our first panel: The Guild. We finally found the room and the line for it…. which kept going, and going, and going… Having no clue how big the room would be I was starting to feel a bit anxious as to whether or not we would get in. While waiting in line I happened to see Daynah walking by. Daynah and I have been online friends for about 8 years now but had never met in person until then. I knew she would be there but we hadn’t made any concrete plans to meet up yet. Small world.

Eventually the line started moving, but then stopped right as we got to the front of it. Of course. The room had been filled, but luckily the attendants decided to let in a few more people as long as they were willing to stand. Even so I loved the panel – it started off with an introduction, and then we were shown the debut of “Do You Wanna Date My Avatar?” and of course the room went wild. They went even more wild when the cast walked out in their costumes. We even got to see the full-length season 3 premiere episode. Overall: great panel.

After The Guild panel we booked it over to Ballroom 20 to get in line for The Big Bang Theory panel, which was the one I was most looking forward to. However, when we arrived the line was already HUGE… we couldn’t even see the beginning of it. We waited outside for about 2 hours, at which point we almost gave up hope of getting in – the panel had already started and we had no idea at what point they would cut the line off. We eventually did make it in (thankfully) and I couldn’t have been happier. The panel was great, the cast was funny, and it went by entirely too quickly. I absolutely cannot wait until season 3 this fall. :)

It was at this point that we realized that at Comic Con, you are not kicked out of the ballroom after each panel. A light bulb went off in our heads when we realized that if we choose one room and stayed in it all day, we could minimize our time waiting in line and maximize the number of panels we could see.

After The Big Bang Theory panel we decided to check out the exhibition hall. It was HUGE. I actually couldn’t see one end from the other, it was so large. The floor was sectioned off into different areas which made it very easy to go to the area you were most interested in: video games, movies, comics, toys, art, etc. There isn’t really much to say about it – it’s something you’d have to see for yourself. I wouldn’t, however, recommend going when we did (early afternoon). There were times when we literally couldn’t move, there were so many people. Definitely go early in the morning or an hour or two before it closes.

Our last panel of the day was the CB panel, which was basically just a panel that previewed a bunch of new shows that will premiere in the fall. Jim Parsons and Johnny Galecki were also on this panel, which was the main reason I wanted to go. ;)

We initially had plans to go to the live TRS show in the evening, but we were both so tired from standing and walking all day that we decided to call it a night. The first day was certainly a learning experience for us, and we learned a lot that helped us better enjoy our second day.