Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Mission Monitor Board 2008: the ultimate MEET-UP at San Diego: wrap-up, pics and sharing experiences

You know, getting pictures of Waid, Wacker or Kitson in a Legion World T-Shirt would be quite the little feather in our cap...

[Lightning Lad]
{ I heard the pre-reg changes this year really helped alleviate past problems. Always a good thing to get registered in advance. }

Well, no, they didn't alleviate this problem, actually. That was why the Comic-Con staff resisted doing it. They felt they had to turn away hundreds, if not a thousand or more, who had shown up on Saturday with their money and had waited in line for hours to get in.

One of the staffers interviewed in a CBR post-mortem said that they knew that doing this was potentially dangerous, with having advertised the show, and then turning away masses of people who had taken them up on it.

The word-of-mouth hit could snowball, hurting the event, especially if this happens again next year. The problem is that Comic-Con already uses the whole Convention Center, and until it's expanded (which is far from certain), they have little they can do. If the San Diego Padres happen to have a home-stand next year, the problems will only worsen.

As for its being "always a good thing," well, yes, it's preferable, but some of us can't easily set plans for a specific date months in advance. Such as with the vagaries of self-employment: Will you turn down a client who wants a massive new Website put on line during the week of Comic-Con, say?

The currant deal between SDCC and the Padres is for Baseball to be 'away' during SDCC weekend and only have night games during the week. The Padres mgt. feels 'real' people won't come down to the park while 'the nerd heard' is around and want Comic Con out of SD. Negotiations to move the con have been running for at least two years now but no decision has been made. The political power between the 'Move it out's' and the "Expand the Convention Center' are to evenly matched.

Given the size of it already, I predict is has to start spilling over more into the nearby hotels; maybe even the old con center (if it still exists).

The current con center is about 5 blocks long; Saturday's line exceeded the entire length (not even counting the indoor sections).

Pre-reg is a must! just as finding lodgings waaaay in advance are.

Not sure where you get your info Steve but I said pre-reg helped alleviate problems. And it did. Unless you want to call people like Heidi over at The Beat wrong. I didn't say there weren't problems with getting in for people who were not pre-paid or pre-registered. I just said pre-registration helped past issues.

And to answer your question about a website, assuming it was directed at me, the answer would be yes. Since it would be outside of our SLAs for someone to give us short notice to get a website online I could possibly turn away a client. To have it go live the week of the con all of the work would have to be done prior with the most minimal of fine tuning being done the week of go-live. And that kind of stuff I can do remotely.

I was going by commentary posted in several places at CBR (the main site, not the forums) and at least one allusion to it at Newsarama.

What I saw in your mentioning "past problems" was, among them, this same overcrowding problem, which is of long standing, and far from solved. They've bumped up against the fire marshals' limits since at least the 2002 con, the first I attended.

And my Website mention was referring to me, actually, but again I was tripped up by the nonspecific "you" -- sorry about that. In the stricter sense, you've got an employer (or those who use your services within your employer), and I have clients. (Sometimes *sigh*)

My point was that when one doesn't have an employer or, thus, internal clients, it's much harder to turn down substantial work that may come up at the last minute. That can make such a possibility work against committing to a multi-day registration far in advance. Or at least, far enough in advance to be able to get Con-arranged "cheaper" hotel rooms.

Sounds great to me!!!

Sorry Steve. Don't know why I assumed it was about me. Just seems that even my directors at work always refer to me when talking about our webstuff. It didn't even enter my memory you did the same without the Corporate backing. And you are totally right. Most of my clients are all internal customers. Although I keep getting asked to do side jobs too but never one that really takes my time like Brewvies or the CMN golf tournament.

I'll be there, assuming of course that Cobie actually shows up and mows my lawn. In fact, Pagan Lass is even willing to offer him a glass of lemonade.

Unfortunately, it would take an act of God to get me to San Diego in 2008.

I'm not even sure I'm going to be able to make it to the 2006 Baltimore comic con, and that's less than 50 miles away.

If I do make it to Baw'more, maybe I'll get Kitson to sign a copy of Legion #1.

That might be another good thing to raffle. I've got duplicates of each issue of the current Legion (I always buy at least two of each). We could see if Waid and Kitson would sign like a full year or two (I'm thinking maybe the first full story arc) and we could do a raffle for that too. Just trying to think of things that I would love to own myself.

I bet I could get Waid and Wacker to do it. They love me. That or they'll see me and run far, far away...

Bumped to remind everyone:

San Diego 2008 is THE LW gathering to end all gatherings! Whatever your vacation plans this year, keep in mind your obligation to meet the entire gang in July 2008!

And remember: if you're not there, we *will* be talking about you!

I'm still thinking of skipping everything in 2007 and saving as much vacation time as possible so we can have a couple of weeks around SDCC in 2008.

I'll probably be doing the same unless I can get somewhere by car, to save for LMB-Con 2008!

Same here, I'd like to spend more than just a weekend at the big meet, so I'm looking to save up money and time off.

Well given where we are coming from a couple of weeks is a must. But I may need to spread myself around a bit. Maybe crash with some one on the east coast for a day or so R&R after the atlantic crossing before heading for the meet?

I'd been thinking about taking a full week at SD before (the office doesn't want me going out more than that), so this dovetails nicely with my own plans.

We've also discussed on and off renting a van or minivan and driving there and back. With enough interested parties, it could be economical (plus one can hit a few sites en route), but anyone who can only wiggle one week off will of course be better off flying.

or teleport. now that we're wackerless, who do we have to nudge and remind about the 50th anniversary?

Caroline and I will be driving from SLC. Anyone wanting to fly into town and drive with us is welcome.

We should ambush Steve anyway, just to let him know we still care.

As for the Legion anniversary, I'd suggest the current editor.

At San D, Levitz suggested Wacker (still the editor, then) and someone in the PR dept, but I can't recall who.

This soudns very good... I'd love to go to San Diego next time and spend some time hitting things other than the con. ;-)