Many of the readers at GamingAngels know that when it comes to con season, the one con that means the most to me is San Diego Comic Con. I have been to SDCC for the past 10 years. This year is going to be lucky number 11. Unfortunately, or fortunately, SDCC has grown very quickly and to the point that it can barely hold everyone who wants to go. With both hotels and passes selling out months before the convention.

The good things about SDCC growing is that it means that more people will want to market or make announcements at SDCC, because of the enormous press coverage and access to the “geek market”. I also love that it means more people are coming for various reasons, but will likely be exposed to something that they may have never seen before. It’s great if SDCC can create more fans of comics.

Unfortunately SDCC can barely hold the amount of people that actually want to attend. Passes are all but sold out. Hotels went on sale today and most people on my twitter were placed in hotels not even in the hotel list because of sell out issues.

Here is what I don’t understand. For the last five years, Travel Planners has increasingly messed up Comic Con hotel registration. They have not been able to come up with a system that can handle the load and in past years, the website has crashed or people’s reservations were lost. So this year they felt they had to re-invent the wheel. What do they do? To start, you have to pick 12 hotels that you may want to stay at. Twelve. Are you serious? I want to stay near the con and on a shuttle route. There were barely 12 hotels that I would consider. But I did it anyway. I started calling on my way to work and actually got through right before 9am on the phone. I slid into my desk at work and gave the nice lady my 12 picks. According to their article, people that got in first would get preference for reservations. Also according to their “plan” we would hear back within 3-5 hours of what hotel we can choose to stay at. And you have to pay for the first night right away.

Well Travel Planners did not disappoint with the level of EPIC FAIL in handling reservations this year. Many of us got emails after 8-9 hours AND did not get a hotel that was even in their top 12. Most hotels that people got (like me) aren’t even on the SDCC approved hotel list.

I know something was wrong with their system because someone that reserved for hotels after I posted on Twitter about the reservations got their reservation before me and got close to the con.

I’m sad to see my favorite con have such a high barrier to attending. I love going to San Diego every year, but it is clear that the organizers have to do two things. First, they need to move the venue to a place that can meet demand. Second, they need to dump Travel Planners. They should have dumped them years ago. I can’t understand why SDCC keeps giving them chances.

I had the worst day today and a friend ended up turning my SDCC frustration down by coming to save the day. It’s going to cost us more money, but it does make me wonder if more hotels gave Travel Planners less rooms so they can book rooms at a higher premium. Hey, they know we’ll pay it.

In the end, I’m still going to my favorite con in the world, but I do want to meet with the organizers of SDCC this year and really find out the low-down and what is going on. Seeing people so upset on twitter, just makes me sad. SDCC is getting a bad reputation, which can help other small cons grow (as people defect to them), but SDCC is special. It just needs to get back to it’s roots again.