Comic-Con 2005

Comic-Con International: San Diego "Swag" Report 2005

I attended Comic-Con International in San Diego again this year. I was working 3/4 of the time so it slowed me down a bit. I picked up as many Promotional items & Premiums as I could. There is a listing of items that I have right after the report (6 paragraphs down). Please feel free to contact me with any questions. The swag is from Anime, Books, Movies & Television. There are Hats, T-shirts, CDRom's, Games, CCG gaming cards, Trading Cards, Key chains, Buttons, Pins, Pens etc.

The Convention floor was just as HUGE as last year, but it took longer walk to the other end of the hall. The aisles where straighter last year. This time they tended to jog slightly to the left or right. This effect was probably caused by the huge booth pavillions impacting the smaller vendors. There was so much to see! Each year I get more and more blown away by everything. I remembered my past warning to myself: Buy It When You See It, because you may never find that booth again. I was right! I didn't even get to some booths until late Sunday afternoon. I sure wasn't getting back to some other booth from Wednesday night.

Here are only a few of the many pictures I took: Young Elektra    My Daughter with Costumed Couple    Tiny Piece of the Exhibit Hall

I saw two Panels and they were wonderful. The Stargate panel and the Serenity / Firefly panel! Stargate had the actors from SG1 on first and then the Atlantis crew on next. Both groups were entertaining and I am very glad I got to see them. The Serenity panel was just as funny as when I saw them at WonderCon in San Francisco. Joss Whedon moderated the panel as best he could. The cast took over at times. Later that day I actually got to "fan" out and tell Joss that I loved him. He was so pleased that I genuinely liked his work (and was not a stalker) that he gave me a HUG. OOOHHHH I AM A HAPPY GIRL!

98% of all Attendees are good. They walk around without stealing. They get to a panel on time and walk in. They find a line and they get in it! They don't bitch and moan and try to cut in the front! I have never known so many people to whine and lie about something that seems so unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Hall H is a giant room. After only one day I had nicknamed it Hall Hell. The Fire Marshal was this cool Amazon woman, who I had no doubt could back up anything she said! She was very funny and still managed to do her job. She had to close the room at times because it was too full. I had to tell a few hardheaded people the bad news: 6,500 people got her BEFORE YOU! One looney said that he would "Kick the Fire Marshal Ass". Not seeing the Fire Marshal on the other side of the curtain. She came around and said, "EXCUSE ME?" The guy immediately re-worked his statement to say, "KISS" not kick. Teeeeheeee!

Once again some Exhibitors had ticketed giveaways for their Premiums & Giveaways. I won the right to buy a very cool Cat Woman figure for $20! I missed out on several drawings because I was not there at the time. I totally lucked out on the giant Dark Phoenix Heroclix. Someone else won it and sold it to me. The base price was $30. Sure the thing is on eBay now for 2 and 3 times as much. But I am sure the lure of $30 in hand was just too tempting for a teenage boy. She is in my Display case right now. I stood in line for several things that I am keeping. I decided not to buy any figures to re-sell on eBay. I didn't want to mess up someone elses chance. I will post a separate list of what I bought & paid for in a different area. The Swag is taking up too much space as it is!
(photos removed after 6 months)

This year I noticed another sad trend. Companies used to put bowls full of items out on a table and let a person grab for themselves. Very very few did that this time. Occasionally I would see someone grab a huge handful of some promo! I am all for getting a few extra items for friends or eBay, BUT 20!! That is the kind of person that is messing it up for the rest of us. So this year the SciFi booth had handlers. The staff member had a dark bag and handed one Promo item to each person. There were always 3 of them working at a time and they did not give out the same item. I did not find that out until too late. I missed out on all the Stargate and Battlestar Galactica items. 10 buttons, 2 wristbands and 2 Pens wwaaaaaah.

I may write more as I remember things & they cross my tired mind. Here is the directory link to pictures of most of the items I found. It is about 97% Swag and 3% purchases in the jpegs. I made many more purchases but I didn't take a picture of it all. A few are surprises for other people.
(photos removed after 6 months)

Here is the list of Free Swag items. Enjoy it or Weep. It's your choice.

Mary, marysgarage@hotmail.com