AntSol Travel

In this post, we are heading to the 2023 San Diego Comic-Con! It has always been on my list of places to go, buy a badge, and go inside the San Diego Convention Center. However, badges were gone in a blink of an eye and I did not have a chance to buy the badge, which was okay since I asked some of the attendees of WonderCon that attended SDCC, they said if it was your first time to SDCC, there are usually lots of free things around San Diego anyways. SDCC, especially pre-2020, has become a huge media fest that is hampered by crowds, and long lines, one of which is considered the largest comic book convention in the world since it shifted to the Hollywood media over time this century anyways.

Due to the media-ness of San Diego Comic-Con, there are labor disputes right now with the writer guild & recently the actors guild on payments, salaries, residual payments for reruns, and the eminent use of artificial intelligence to take away both job types. Here at AntSol Travel, we support the Screenwriters & Actors Guilds! It is hard to make ends meet when you are in between gigs, especially for the writers whose jobs could be lost due to AI script writing, along with facial scanning & voice modulation for the actors and only paid for a full day. Since they are picketing, they cannot represent themselves at the panels & exhibit halls, so it killed some of the panels. I am okay with supporting the protest, and I cannot even see any of the panels since I never got to buy a badge.

According to San Diego State, San Diego Comic-Con is the largest revenue generation for the city of San Diego, Convention Center, the many hotels & restaurants, Visit San Diego funding by hotel tourism frees, San Diego Metropolitan Transportation System (SDMTS) for bus & trolley fares, Amtrak Pacific Surfliner from the greater Southern California region, North Country Transit District (NCTD) Coaster commuter train from Oceanside to downtown, the sales for convention exhibitors,  and the many more in the hospitality, travel, and tourism industry of San Diego! 

San Diego Comic-Con started in 1970 as a simple comic book convention at the Grant Hotel, then moved to the San Diego Convention Center when it opened in 1979 along with other hotels for additional event space. 

Over the decades, the convention grew in popularity, then in turn with the media as well as attendance swelled to over 100000 in the 2010s, with the San Diego Convention Center building up capacity over the years to 2.6 million square feet and the many badged only event spaces at neighboring hotels.

With their contract with the convention center expiring after the 2024 show, there is wild speculation for relocation. The San Diego Convention Center still outsizes the centers north of San Diego, such as Anaheim at 1.8 million sq ft

However, none of the convention centers can go toe to toe against Las Vegas as I attended the Hospitality Show at the Venetian Las Vegas which overall has 2.2 million sq ft, there is also the neighboring Las Vegas Convention at 4.6 million sq ft which hosts the Consumer Electronics Show, and the many resorts along the Las Vegas Strip with plenty of event spaces. Even if Comic Con International wants to consider Las Vegas in the same time frame of July, the city is in the desert and would be over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, which is what it was like when I was in town for the Hospitality Show, and I was dying every time I walked the mile from Marriott Grand Chateau where I stayed, and walked to the Venetian. Please make sure to stay hydrated! 

City	Rounded Square Footage of Event Space	Exhibit Hall Space
Oakland	100,000	64,000
Sacramento	240,000	160,000
Long Beach: Comparison.	400,000	224,000
Los Angeles	878,600	767,500
San Francisco: Moscone Center	860,000	581,000
Anaheim	1,800,000	1,041,700
San Diego	2,600,000	525,700
Las Vegas	4,600,000	1,940,600

To get to San Diego, I could drive from Anaheim to San Diego, however, I don’t like going as it takes a lot of time, energy, and especially focus as I can’t do it for an extended period due to eye fatigue. Along with the unpredictability of highway traffic and then park & ride the San Diego Trolley since the high amount of pedestrians makes it a bit hard to drive around downtown San Diego, the way it should be!

I took the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner from Anaheim to San Diego, about two hours per way, with fares of $30 per person per way. On the train, I relax, film the train ride, and start writing on this script.

I took the Pacific Surfliner 564 which departed Anaheim at 7:49 am, with stops at Santa Ana, Irvine, and San Juan Capistrano, passed by the landslide barrier of the San Clemente Pier, the pier only gets four trains per day not including this one, Oceanside, Solana Beach, Old Town San Diego, and San Diego Santa Fe Depot in downtown. Along the way, I took video on my GoPro Hero 9 with Time Lapse from Santa Ana to Irvine, and then real-time footage to San Diego.

I also cosplayed as well since I was inspired by my last visit to WonderCon to do so. I dressed as Rei, the male protagonist of Pokémon Legends of Arceus! Both photos are screen shots from the video at my apartment, first is me with my Oshawott, and the second picture you can get a better look at the shirt. I got a short sleeved, normally long sleeved, since I know at the conventions I would wear it, it would be hot and humid, like it happened to be at San Diego Comic Con.

Welcome to Outside of Comic Con!

After a smooth two-hour train ride from Anaheim to San Diego Santa Fe Depot on Amtrak Pacific Surfliner, we all disembarked the train to downtown San Diego, which at that point was mostly Comic Con attendees. Then we all walked from the station, a half-mile walk to the convention center.

I went on Thursday, July 20th, the first full day of San Diego Comic-Con. At 10:20 am, it was already really crowded at the entrance of the convention center. I tried to get a badge during the main sale, however, it was immediately gone when I tried to log on. The badged area was in the 2.6 million sq ft San Diego Convention Center, which is 615000 sq ft in exhibit hall space, along with event spaces at the Hilton Bayfront, Marriott Marquis, Manchester Grand Hyatt, and the Omni hotels. Those hotels hosted ancillary events, volunteer registrations, and merchandise sales that could not fit into the convention center. Brand activations which are advertising experiences for badged & badgeless attendees, we’re all around the downtown area at various hotels, event spaces, condo buildings, restaurant spaces, and open grass areas along the San Diego Bayfront. These will be referred to interchangeably as activations/exhibits from here.

There are many hotels in the San Diego area that has room blocks for $300 a night for four nights. Hotels outside of the downtown area have scheduled motorcoach from the hotels to the downtown convention center area, drop off point depends on the hotel location. The airport/marina hotels are next to the convention center, and the hotel circle stop by Petco Park.

The San Diego Padres scheduled around Comic Con to be away since Padres games draw huge crowds, adding Comic Con would make it worse. On Thursday, Padres were playing the Toronto Blue Jays, then playing at the Detroit Tigers on the weekend.

I want to see if the Park at Petco Park, home of San Diego was open to walkthrough as it usually is on off day. However, the park was closed as stadium crews were cleaning the surrounding sidewalk. I also happen to see a Toyota Tundra themed to the Padres City Connect jersey for the Padres game, not for Comic Con.

Activations, Activations everywhere! Or I will call them exhibits since these are like booths in the exhibit halls, except these are outside, open to the general public. Activations were the main basis of outdoor fun since they are free since companies want to advertise to you to watch their tv show or movie, or at least have brand awareness. I found an article on Fox 5 that inspired most of the activations I went to.

My first stop was Petco Park’s Lexus Lot, home of the Interactive Zone. After going through the security bag check, you get to interact with the 30th anniversary of Dazed & Confused, the Metallic Monster of the Real Cost (of smoking), Transformers statues, and a GNC x Marvel booth. There were food trucks & booths, including the popular Hello Kitty merchandise van, and a bacon-wrapped hot dog stand, and I got a breakfast burrito from Bread & Butters Eattery based in Oceanside, which I found out after posting, @andburritos as a separate account.

Along the bayfront, FX had a huge exhibit for their various shows, for which I got a picture with the FX logo & got a beach ball for their show “What Happens In The Shadows.” A mockumentary about vampires in modern times, see brand awareness.

Fox & FX’s lineup of animated mature comedy shows like Bobs Burgers, Archer, a continuation of Futurama, and more, had a huge line for photo ops & bags. Would I wait in line for that, not in that long of a line? At the backside of the Marriott Marquis, was an exhibit for Dragon Ball Z, which they heavily advertise in the Marriott. On the water, New Belgium Brewing has a sailing ship for their VooDoo Ranger IPA, and IMDb even rented a boat!

Along the Martin Luther King Jr. Promenade that parallels the trolley tracks, hosted several exhibits. The Harbor Club Condominiums has space on the first level for exhibits for WhatNot, an online shopping streaming platform; video game developer Namco Bandai for their Tekken fighting game; and Apple TV+ for their upcoming show, Camp Snoopy in 2024, with an interactive area, merchandise, and even s’mores. Down the way, They have exhibits for That 70s Show’s 25th anniversary by Laff tv, including the original station wagon. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has had an exhibit for their new Mutant Mayhem with themed fingerboards. NBC’s Twisted Metal had photo ops with their cars and get free ice cream.

There were exhibits in the Gaslamp District such as Quantum Leap Cantina in which NBC took over Baja Rick’s Cantina, Haunted Mansion pedicabs that look like the attraction’s Doom Buggy at Disneyland, Paramount’s+ the Lodge for photo ops of their Nickelodeon shows like iCarly & SpongeBob. My favorite was a pop-up shop of the famous Donut Bar San Diego by Chef Santiago, at the Pendry Hotel. I bought a doughnut each for my sister & myself. I got my sister her favorite, the Homer Donut, with pink frosting & sprinkles. While I got the San Diego Comic-Con exclusive donut, a Superman-themed donut with blue frosting & a printed-on fondant of the Superman logo, which was the only souvenir I got since space in my backpack was limited.

After all that, I was mostly done with exhibit activations for the one I did not want to wait in really long lines, however, the adjacent hotels hosted ancillary events & spaces that could not fit in the convention center. To cool down & have a coffee break, I went to the Manchester Grand Hyatt, where they hosted a blood drive, Ashley Eckstenes’ Her Universe Geek clothing designer competition, and an art show. The art show was open to the public to view but you need to be an attendee to bid, along with no pictures.

The Marriott Marquis Hotel had ancillary rooms that did not fit in the convention center for panels, arcades, games, video games, merch stores, anime, hospitality suites, and more, which all require a badge in the Western events spaces. In the eastern event spaces was the volunteer registration. While the Hilton & Omni hotels would only have convention programs.

Outside of the hustle & bustle of the convention area, it feels like a normal day in downtown San Diego when you get to Seaport Village & a few blocks up 5th Ave in the Gaslamp District.

How are things outside of the Convention Center and Gaslamp area?

Fifth Street of the Gaslamp District is completely pedestrian-only for eight blocks to Market Street giving more spaces for restaurants for outdoor dining and pedestrians can have more room to walk around instead of a crowded sidewalk. The cross streets still allow cars to cross the roads normally. When you get past a few blocks further out, the crowds get smaller and more storefronts are abandoned, and it looks like downtown San Diego like day to day. Unfortunately, downtown and San Diego has a huge cost of living, forcing many people to live on the street, with many homeless people & encampments around town that can be seen just walking or on the trolley. Just make sure always be aware of your surroundings. 

From the fifth street station, I took the trolley to 12th & Imperial to transfer to the special event line to take to Seaport Village shopping center to get pictures of San Diego & the shopping center. It was an hour before the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner 591 to Los Angeles with my disembark at Anaheim. To get a quick dinner to bring on the train, I went to the shopping center next door, the Headquarters at Seaport and went to Hi Poke for a poke bowl to have on the train ride back to Anaheim. After getting the bowl, I beelined half a mile to the Santa Fe Depot.

At Santa Fe Depot, it is the southern terminus of the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner, so everyone has to line up in their respective coach & business car lines prior to boarding. Coach is unreserved seating in the coach cars with outlet per row, foldout tray, footrest, and overhead storage. Business car costs $15 more from Anaheim to San Diego per way with assigned seats, snacks,and evening drinks. There is a boarding process, you wait in line until boarding with a separate line if you bought a coach or business class. Then when it is time to board, business is directed to their own car, and then coach is free for all with four coach cars. The sixth car is the cafe & observation car. Since the Train departs at 7 pm, I got there at 6:30 pm so I can prioritize getting my western facing view of the Pacific Ocean for my video with only several passengers in front of me. 

At 6:46 pm, the Amtrak staff led the business class passengers to the business car, then they led the coach passengers to our cars. I went to the cab car, the opposite side of the train from the locomotive. Pacific Surfliner train sets are bi level train cars led by a locomotive going south. While going northbound, the locomotive pushes the train cars, as the train engineer operates the cab car, where you can hear all the train horns, bells, and even the beeping for the positive train control to make sure the train engineer is paying attention, however, you can hear all the controls in the passenger cabin and passengers chatter in the video. 

This was a different Pacific Surfliner train set than I came down to San Diego, so the GoPro & tripod had a better view to see the sunset! However, the train cars need serious deep cleaning as the carpets and seats were visibly dirty. Along with the windows, it sort of distorted the color on the video due to the dirt on the window, please deep clean your train sets Amtrak!

We departed San Diego on time at 7 pm, Sunset was at 8 pm, when we got to Solana Beach, the sun & sky were a brilliant orange, and then the sun sank down below the horizon at 8 pm departing Oceanside. The hues of the sky were a mix of orange & blue at 8:22 pm at San Clemente Pier, which this train does not stop at, but you can see beachgoers enjoy sunset & bonfires. At 8:35 pm, it was completely dark when we got to San Juan Capistrano. From there to Anaheim, it was completely dark outside, so there isn’t much to look at for the people watching the video. At 9:10 pm, we arrived back at my home station at the Anaheim train station and capped it off with a departure video of the train.

At Anaheim, I was finally home at 9:10 pm after a long but fun day a the outside of Comic-Con! I am happy that the train tracks was open in time to take the train down to San Diego so I did not have to deal with driving in general and just relax going there & heading home. Going outside of Comic-Con was great so I can take in the general atmosphere of the convention, and be ready to buy a badge for next year!