My first day of SDCC 2015 started earlier than ever, with a 3:45am trek to Logan Airport for my 5:45am flight towards San Diego. The weekend’s festivities did not get off to a good start as today was the day some hackers decided to take down United’s worldwide computer system. After the first leg of my trip, I was stuck in Dulles airport, where we waited for the computer systems to come back up. First the airline decided to manually board us, then we sat on the plane for an hour until they told us to de-board. Almost immediately afterwards, the computers were back up and we had to begin the hour-long boarding process all over again. So we ended up leaving about two and half hours late.
After landing in cool, sunny San Diego, I headed to baggage claim, where there were these cool advertisements for Conan.
I got my luggage and then hopped on a SuperShuttle to my hotel. My room was not yet ready, so I walked over to Bub’s at the Ballpark to meet up with some other press folks who were in the same predicament, and had some tater-tots (which was now becoming an annual tradition). I received a call that my room was ready just 15 minutes later, so I checked in at the Omni, went up to my room and discovered this excellent view:
Due to my late arrival, I didn’t have a chance to do my usual trip to Ralph’s to pick up my caffeine-fueled soda for the week. Instead, I immediately headed towards the convention center for registration. On my way, I passed some Sharknado demonstrators, and grabbed a spiffy new hat, but more on that later:
At registration, I got my badge and WB Comic-Con bag (Gotham heroes) and I immediately got in line for the Preview Night exhibition floor.
Got my badge, and in my first line of the weekend #SDCC pic.twitter.com/k4dowxcuHs
— Kyle Nolan (@kyool) July 8, 2015
The sea of people waiting for the convention floor to open—this is just the portion that lined up 2hrs ago pic.twitter.com/cix1VhiDgj
— Kyle Nolan (@kyool) July 9, 2015
While waiting in line, I took some pictures of the some of the surrounding buildings:
Since the Funko booth was supposedly not going to allow exhibitors and professionals into their line for preview night, I figured this was finally my opportunity to pick up some of their exclusives. So, after 3 hours of waiting, we were unleashed onto the convention floor, and I headed directly for the Funko booth. However, I was quickly told the line was already capped and that I had to move along. I suspect that the exhibitors and professionals already inside the building had found a way to circumvent the limitation, because I was not far from the from of the convention center line!
Unfortunately, since I had tried for the Funko line, this meant there was already a huge line at the Walking Dead photo op booth, which I usually make a B-line for immediately when the doors open. So instead I got into the line for the ABC booth, which looked much shorter. However, this was very deceiving as the line moved incredibly slow and they were only letting in about 8 people every 12 minutes. So it was about an hour before I finally got in.
The booth was designed to look like the Muppets’ soundstage, and inside they had a control room and a set for Miss Piggy’s talk show. We watched a short ad for the new The Muppets show (it was basically just the upfronts trailer) and afterwards they gave us a button and we had a chance to get our picture taken. The camera would take four pictures, putting you with a random Muppet or the evil queen from Once Upon a Time—I ended up with Regina—and it would generate an animated GIF. However, for the third year in a row, ABC’s system never ended up sending me my photo. I think this will be the last year I bother with the ABC booth—the line is always slow and I never seem to get my photo!
The line for the Walking Dead photo opp was still way too long, so I just took some photos instead—this year the photo opp was designed to look like the revolving doors scene from the latest season.
After this I wandered around the show floor, looking for other TV-related booths.
I passed by the Ash vs. Evil Dead photo opp booth which looked like an RV:
At the BBC America booth, there was another photo opp to get your picture taken with the weeping angels from Doctor Who.
Oh no, the weeping angels, I blinked! #SDCC #DoctorWho pic.twitter.com/Thfsyy8Vgr
— Kyle Nolan (@kyool) July 9, 2015
And I also found a TARDIS nearby.
In the TARDIS #SDCC #DoctorWho pic.twitter.com/Pd2PKlEfPD
— Kyle Nolan (@kyool) July 9, 2015
I still have no idea what was happening at the Adult Swim booth:
The booth for The Last Ship had some sort of VR experience.
I wandered around to a few more booths, and scouted the location of the Dark Horse booth, where I would be doing an interview the next day:
Finally, I picked up a free Apu fan at the Bongo Comics booth, and decided to make my first purchase ever from the show floor—a limited edition variant of Bob’s Burgers issue #1 with a SDCC-exclusive cover:
Who needs the Stick-y fan? I doooooooo! #swag #BongoComics #TheSimpsons #SDCC pic.twitter.com/tjD87xFqMX
— Kyle Nolan (@kyool) July 9, 2015
It only took me 6 years, but I finally made my first #SDCC convention floor purchase! #BobsBurgers @DynamiteComics pic.twitter.com/48HqytoLMl
— Kyle Nolan (@kyool) July 9, 2015
Afterwards, I dropped my stuff off at the hotel and met up with Jason (@theTVaholic) to head over to the first ever Game of Bloggers meatup. After we checked in and got our badges, we talked with a few blogger friends and then decided to call it a night.
It had been a very long day for me and I decided to wait until the morning to prep for the next’s day’s press rooms. But before I turned out, I decided to try on that stylish Sharknado hat I picked up earlier:
