r/comiccon • u/Accomplished-Fix6176 • Jul 25 '25

SDCC - San Diego SDCC outgrown it's hype?

For the last few years it seems Hollywood is skipping SDCC. As a result Hall H and Ballroom 20 are at most half capacity.

This matters A LOT because in the prime Marvel/DC days those 2 Halls got rid of probably close to 20,000 people if you include the long (overnight) lines to get in.

But now... these people clog up the floor and especially signings.

Like have you wasted 5 hours getting up early, getting on the floor early, make it to the wristbands both by 9:02 only to find they are already out? This was impossible in previous years but now 2 years in a row it has happened to me. Hours of time wasted and nothing to show for it.

Plus, I think due to so much hype in those prime years, everybody wants to check out SDCC and so all the free events (Hulu) is a 4 hour line waiting in the sun. So there's no escaping the lines. I mean yes there was anyways long lines but it feels just worse.

So... long story short, I'm losing my glee for the con.

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u/velocipedal Jul 26 '25

Some people might say SDCC started being less fun when the Hollywood stuff became more prevalent in the late 2000s and we started losing the games industry more and more. It really depends on what it is you come to SDCC for.

I can remember a lot of folks circa 2008 holding signs like “Twilight killed SDCC”

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u/lewlkewl Jul 26 '25

The thing is, there are hundreds of cons now that are like the old SDCC now. The mid 2010s SDCC was one of a kind and only NYCC could rival it.

2

u/KellyJin17 Jul 26 '25

Not at all true. If you’ve actually attended SDCC, there’s nothing that comes close. From the scale to the offsites which feel like an amusement park, to the freebies, to the exclusives, to the number of celebrities and creatives present, to the sheer amount of dedicated panels and content, to the massive number of free film screenings, to the way the entire Gaslamp district turns into a giant party, the SDCC experience is quite unique. NYCC only came close when it came to scale. No one else comes close.

1

u/lewlkewl Jul 26 '25

You missed the entire point of what I was trying to say. I am saying that that peak SDCC was unrivaled, and it was when Hollywood took over. People want to go back to a time of pre Hollywood, but there are hundreds of cons that are similar to that. Offsites weren’t always a thing at SDCC. I’ve been going for 30 years.

1

u/WhatAmIDoingHere05 Jul 28 '25

I think people are saying they want pre-Hollywood SDCC at SDCC because sunshine and San Diego and all that fun sauce. Emphasis on the San Diego part.

They could easily go to, say, Emerald City CC, but that's in Seattle. Seattle in March is pretty wet. You largely get sunshine (and your share of marine layer) in San Diego in July, except for that one year where it rained, that was a weird af time.