# 1 Know what you want to see beforehand. Luckily SDCC posts the schedule ahead of time so you can get your pencils out and mark on your computer screen what panels/autograph/event you wanted to see. Remember the lines are gonna be long and you can wait up to 3 hours with no guarantee you will get in.
#2 Bring a backpack and have water bottle and snacks/food. There's water fountains so you can fill up. Prices are expensive for food so consider bringing snacks or food. I, of course suggests Clif Bars !
#3 Be prepare to walk. One gal who a pedometers and calculated she walked 10 miles in a day. Bring comfortable shoes.
#4 Expect to spend two days to really cover the convention floor. Mark down the booth # of those you are interested in - this way, at the end, you can figure out what you really wanna spend your money on. Don't blow your wad in the first 2 hours ! There's many vendors so you could find a better deal and remember Sunday to bargain.
#5 Expect lines everywhere. Lines to get in, lines to get swag, lines, lines, lines. It is Line-Con. A lot of people I talked to mention that the wait time has grown since last year.
#6 For cosplayers - avoid large props - it can be hassle to get through on the show floor. Wear comfortable shoes if you can.
#7 Parking is expensive. Saw one lot advertising for $25. Use the trolley - it works great. It is $5 for all day pass (or get the 4 day pass and save some money). The Qualcomm Stadium has free parking. Some of the other stops have paid parking. I noticed the one lot we used is now $15 to park while last year it was $5 so they jacked up the price. If you're a cosplayer - I advise just getting a hotel in the area so you can change easier.
Now about cosplay. I realized I'm at a comic book convention so the ratio of cosplayers to attendees are lower than at an anime con but I didn't see as many cosplayers walk by where I was with at Epic Cosplay wigs. I've talked to several folks about this and here's what I think. 1) Since the hall is so packed, cosplayers may be in regular clothes 2) As Comic Con gets bigger, the amount of cosplayers probably is relatively the same so they would be harder to find 3)I was in aisle 200 and perhaps not many walked that far down. I know there were many cosplayers there since Comic Vine posted up a gallery of over 1,000 images. So I just didn't get out enough was my problem. As this is my first year at SDCC I can't compare it to other years but again, talking to a lot of people, I get a general feeling there's not as much cosplay as before.
Next year should be interesting as they raised the ticket prices to $150 (not including preview night) up from $105 thus so people won't be able to attend due to price. We shall see. I'm on the fence for 2012. I can register for a small press table (provided they accept me - they screen) or I can just come to shoot photos. I got a few months before the deadline. Artist Alley tables are available right now until Sept 23 but I hear it is really difficult to get in. Best thing might be to show up on Day 1 and see if there's any openings. Competition is fierce.
I admit it, SDCC kicked my butt. I've been to so many cons and I figured I could handle SDCC - nope. Walking the long exhibit hall to find friends wore me out. On Preview Night, SDCC was open for 3 hours. My feet were tired at the end of those three hours and I didn't even see half the hall !
Now that SDCC is behind me, I'm preparing for Otakon in Baltimore, MD. Hopefully there won't be fire alarms like last year ^^. Otakon is the largest anime convention on the East Coast and I've always enjoyed the con. This year I'll be in the dealer hall with Crunchyroll. No photo booth again - I'm finding this to be difficult to pull off in super large cons - instead, I'll be shooting for Crunchyroll for their own photo set-up which will end up on their Flickr stream.
So thank you San Diego and hello East Coast !
