San Diego Comic Con recap 2024
September 25, 2024
Our travel cost breakdown
1. Food and lodgings, $300
2. Gas, $150
3. Trolley for four of us: $42
4. Gifts and stuff (both for us and others): $500
5. Badges for 2 adults, four days plus Preview Night: $730. 2 children were free (vs $623 in 2023)
6. Dogsitting, $0 😔
7. Stupid tax, $0? I don’t remember anything that falls into this category. Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, just that I forgot to record it if it did.
8. We added an extra entertainment this year and split ticket costs: $150 for our share of entry fees and locker rental.
Total: $1872
As always, this endeavor starts many months in advance. Badges are sold through a lottery system so it’s never certain that we’ll get in. I’m always grateful when we do.
A bit of history: A Saturday pass for 2024 cost $79. They also now charge a handling fee of $15 so it’s $94 to attend that one specific day. In 2005, that Saturday pass was $10. TEN DOLLARS.
Spending: We were freer with our spending than usual and there were fewer deals than usual. Normally those two things wouldn’t appear in the same sentence together! But I’m very happy with the things I bought for myself. I finally indulged in a piece of jewelry from Adorable Mayhem – her stuff is all handmade and really cute. I couldn’t justify spending much on myself in the past, and especially not with two grabby hands kids in a row, but they’re finally old enough to know better and she happened to be selling a line of tiny animals bearing weapons. I couldn’t resist. My little hamster wielding a flail makes me very happy. As does my (very cute) wallet that is finally the right size ($30). I’d been using a $20 wallet from Target that was simply too big for my hands for the past 2 years. It’s too big and too heavy, but I made do. Now I have one that’s comfortable for me to hold, not so heavy, and doesn’t hurt my hands after a bit.
Favorite moments: JB boldly made a beeline for the adults sitting at the table at the bookstore booth to ask if they had specific books. Unfortunately the adult in question was a special guest author, Adam Nimoy, who was thoroughly confused by the customer service question. I was laughing as I steered them to the actual bookseller on his right and then we got out of there. (On reflection, he could have been just a little bit gracious about it. He pulled a face and asked the bookseller person “Do i have a WHAT??” You’re sitting at a bookstore booth at Comic Con and a kid is looking for a book, is it really that outrageous they’d just ask the first adult human looking like they’re available for help? I still think it’s funny but I also don’t think much of the guy.)
Walking into the restroom, a little girl behind me yelled “I like your skirt!” When I turned to say thank you, she yelled “I like your mask too!” (We weren’t the only maskers but we were in the minority so it was a nice callout.)
Smol Acrobat yelled Wolverine! (the kids mostly know the Avengers, but Wolvie is my old time favorite) and the cosplayer waved to them with a grin and popped claws for them.
JB had taken a picture with a giant Pudgy Penguin cosplayer. I showed it to Smol Acrobat who was fascinated and wanted one of their own. We wheeled (in their stroller)
Clever cosplays we loved: Kobe-Wan Kenobi, a Jedi master costume in Laker colors.
The Indiana Jones cosplayer in a wheelchair with a rolling ball behind their head above.
The Avatar cosplayers who brought awesome props to mimic bending.
The Remy (Ratatouille) rat riding on the human’s head.
That moment when we were driving home when I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with my body. It felt funny. I keep prodding mentally, what’s this? What’s going on with me? And then it finally sank in: I’m actually feeling relaxed. It’s been a year or more since I actually felt that way.
I’ve put in a calendar alert for the next returning registration battle. Fingers crossed.
yay!!! So fun that you got to go! I love that the Wolverine had poppable claws (I mean, of course they did, but so fun). That sounds delightful.
It was a real gift, especially this year. We’ve had good years and we’ve had hard years. Last year was a hard one, and this was a lot of fun.