SDCC is always a given for us. 2014 was my 18th year going and it’s something I look forward to every year.
We didn’t get preview night this year, but went down to the gaslamp quarter to hang out. We walked around a few art galleries, got drunk ate at Barley Mash and met up with Colleen for even more drinks.
Thursday
Thursday was our first official day.
We picked up our badges and headed straight to the Penguin booth to get signing tickets for Morgan Rhodes.
From there, we headed over to Macmillan to get Ruin & Rising polish say hi to Molly. We ended up running into Katie and Michelle at the booth and took photos before making plans to meet up again at Penguin.
On our way through Artists Alley, we found these awesome metal bookmarks and talked to the artist for a bit.
We found Karen Hallion and took a photo with her while I was wearing her shirt. Her booth was sort of a mess of people, so we didn’t stay long.
Somehow we ended up in Ballroom 20 and watched part of the panel for Under the Dome while eating some snacks, drinking some water and resting our feet.
We made our way toward Penguin and stopped at the Harper Collins booth. I had seen the Epic Reads tote and wanted one, so I went in. I somehow ended up with a ticket to see Veronica Roth the next day.
We got over to Penguin just in time for Morgan to start signing. They were giving away paperbacks of Falling Kingdoms and arcs of Gathering Darkness. As Morgan was signing, I went to take a photo. She looked up at the same time and started a conversation about resting bitch face and how she’s trying to remember to make herself look happy while on panels because she has resting bitch face.
We made our way around to buy a Doctor Who Yahtzee set in a Pandorica and Hubs bought a zombie Kirk Hammett for an autograph ticket. And then the goal of the day was to find Daniel from MasterChef. There is a long, somewhat detailed story about why I wanted to see him {much more than it being because I love the show and he’s my favorite contestant}. It involves Paula Stokes and twitter and our maybe threat of objectifying him.
While looking for Daniel, we stumbled upon Yaya Han. Like, literally stumbled. There was a bit of a hold up in one of the aisles and there may or may not have been some slight pushing. Turns out Yaya was signing some paperwork in front of her booth. After she was done, she posed for photos and was genuinely so nice.
We kept wandering around a bit more and I kept my fangirl eyes open so wide and yet, I didn’t see Daniel. Fast forward a bit and I got this…
The worst part? I was already home and Daniel was only going to be attending Thursday. I guess I’ll just have to continue to objectify him on Twitter. Sigh.
Friday
Friday brought us right to Mysterious Galaxy for signing tickets to Marie Lu, so we went there first. On the way we ran into Ksenia from Macmillan and chatted with her for a couple minutes. When we got to MG, I ended up getting numbers 3 & 4 for Marie.
We stopped at the Harper booth to see what time the line up for Veronica Roth was going to start. They told us that the it would start at 10:15. We wandered around and then at 10:15 a huge mass of people swarmed the aisle. It was a hot mess, but Harper handled it.
We got up to Veronica pretty quickly {thank you, Harper Collins people for being so organized and running a great signing!}. She wasn’t taking posed photos, but you could take photos from the line. When we got up to her, I thanked her for doing the signing. Hubs showed her the selfies he was taking with her in the background. She laughed and said it was awesome.
From Veronica, we went straight to the line up for Lo & C. As I was waiting for them, Christina and Lauren saw me and stopped to say hi and give hugs. I had my manuscript of Sweet Filthy Boy to have signed and Hubs took a copy of Beautiful Bastard for reasons unknown.
The line was very organized this time around. They had big signs indicating where the line started and ended and took a few people at a time over to the signing table. When I got up there, Christina hugged me again. We chatted about it being a while since they had seen me and I mentioned that it had been since last year’s SDCC.
After that, we just wandered around. Hubs had learned that the 4 guys from Impractical Jokers had gotten to the convention center and were walking around, so we went on the hunt.
At 1pm, hubs and I separated. He went to a booth for Kirk Hammett and I went to stand in line for Marie Lu. Even though the tickets were numbered, we were told that the numbers were just to control how many arcs they had to give away.
We got to Marie quickly and were able to get the SDCC exclusive arc as well as the copies we already had signed.
Michelle and I walked back to the video game area, where we ended up running into Hubs. She went to meet up with her husband before leaving as they were lining up for Hall H that evening. We ended up stopping at Macmillan once more to take a photo with Ksenia before leaving ourselves.
Saturday
Saturday we had absolutely no agenda, so we didn’t get down to the convention center until 10:30 or so. We found ourselves at the DC booth since they had a really fantastic Batman display set up.
They had the masks from 1989-1997 on one side and stuff from The Dark Knight series on the other side.
Remember I mentioned going to the art galleries on preview night? Well, the distributor for the galleries had a booth on the floor and I bought a hand drawn sketch of Toothless. I had seen it at the gallery and pretty much fell in love with it, so I was beyond thrilled to be able to get my greedy hands on it.
After wandering around the convention floor for a bit, we left and headed back into the Gaslamp Quarter to see about getting the Mockingjay pins.
Instead of the Lionsgate booth giving them out like previous years, there was an entire “experience” to do before seeing the trailer and getting the pin. It was held at the Hard Rock hotel and the line was ridiculous. However, while we waited, we saw all sorts of celebrities walking by.
That’s Jeremy Renner, Michael Emerson and Sarah Paulson. They were all leaving the Hard Rock and walked right in front of us while we were waiting.
After about an hour of standing in line, some lady behind us heard them say that if you didn’t want to go through the experience, you could skip the massive line and go into a smaller line. The smaller line was just to see the trailer and then get the pin. We were taken inside the hotel and handed the pin, then ushered to a sort of holding area. As soon as we got around the corner, we skipped the line. I’ll see the trailer soon enough, but I couldn’t wait for the pin.
After getting the pins, we called it a day and went back home.
Sunday
For Sunday, we didn’t have much of an agenda either.
We ended up mostly wandering around with Colleen and happened to walk by one of the booths when two of the men from Supernatural were coming out of a virtual reality area.
The only thing I had planned was to see CJ Redwine. I have her complete trilogy in arcs {thank you, Rachel and Rachel} and I was dying to finally meet her.
The panel signing before the YA panel had been moved, so we were able to line up early {even if the security guard fought me on it a bit}. The first 100 people got an arc of Unmarked by Kami Garcia. I was able to chat a little bit with Katie and Michelle.
The panel of authors got to the table early, so they started early. We went to Kami first and we said hi. She signed my arc and told me to help myself to the swag she had.
I was still standing in front of Kami when I looked over to CJ Redwine. I thanked Kami for the book and slid over to CJ. I gave her my arcs and actually identified myself by telling her my twitter handle. She said she was happy to finally meet me and I told her that Sunday was all about her. That if she wouldn’t have been there, we would have skipped Sunday. CJ told me that I was going to make her cry and stood up to hug me.
After she signed, we took a photo. I thanked her for being at SDCC. She said that now she could say that there was at least one person who showed up just for her.
On the way out, I sort-of-maybe interrupted Tahereh Mafi to squeeze her and say hi. We chatted for a second with her before chatting for a minute with Lo & Christina. Then we started making our way to leave.
On the way out, Hubs wanted to walk by the Fox booth to see if the Sons of Anarchy panel signing was still happening. It was, so we walked through the mass of people to take photos.
After going through the area twice, we made our way out of the convention center. And as fun as SDCC is, I won’t be missing this anytime soon.
So jealous. It sounds awesome, but thanks to you it’s a little bit like I’ve been there too.
Thank you! That’s the best compliment I could get! SDCC is a lot of fun. It’s sort of a hot mess too, but mostly fun.
Thanks for reading and commenting!
You were making me miss it this year…AGAIN!!! :) It looks like it was fun and I can’t believe you got Gathering Darkness! :)
xoxo
Erin
I bet we walked past each other several times when you were here. :D And yes! I’m excited to see how it all ends, plus I completed my collection in arcs, so win win!
Thanks for reading and commenting!!
<3
I’ve never been to SDCC before but I’ve always wanted to go. Seeing the crowds I wonder if I’d be able to enjoy it though. So many people! It looks like you had a great time. Yay Yaya Han :-) And the Young Elites, so awesome.
It’s definitely gotten more crowded compared to when we first started going. It’s still a lot of fun, but Hubs is getting to the point where he doesn’t want to go any longer.
Yaya was such a professional. She’s so sweet and handles the masses so well.
Thanks for reading and commenting!
Sounds like you had an awesome time, Stacee. I saw you when you were getting your book signed by Christina Lauren but I didn’t want to interrupt and then I had to run off someplace. Cool that you got to see Veronica Roth as well. I went to her panel and it was really cool. I can’t believe that SDCC is over but can’t wait for next year!
One of these days, we’re actually going to meet at a signing and have time to chat!
I can’t believe it’s over already too! It seems like I spend all year obsessing over it and then it’s over so quickly.
Glad to hear that you had fun! Thanks for reading and commenting.
That’s my daughter and me in your top right picture (she has the violet hair and you got my forehead lol). We were next to each other and I hope I didn’t push you or anything (it was crazy around the book booths). Sorry if I did!! Comic Con is crazy but fun. I missed Veronica Roth and Christina Lauren. But my niece got me The Young Elites ARC. I hope you had a great time!