So what’s the good news?

If you couldn’t get a room in March, and haven’t found alternative housing for the convention, this may be your second chance!

Even if there were fewer “just in case” reservations this year, there are always at least some people whose plans just fall through. Someone gets sick, their financial status changes, they were counting on a raise that didn’t happen, a cousin schedules a wedding for that weekend, etc. Rooms should be opening up over the next few days as people take their last chance to cancel without penalty.

The question is: what happens to them?

The old reservation process worked like a crowded store, where everyone kept trying to pick a room until they ran out. So when rooms freed up, they were made available to whoever happened to be checking up on the system.

This year, though, was like a massive take-a-number system, with Travel Planners assigning rooms to people in order (even though it’s not clear exactly what order it was). They did cap the line, but there were an awful lot of people who got requests in but no rooms, and ended up on a waiting list. A representative confirmed by email that they will contact people as rooms free up.*

So, what we should see in the next few days is Travel Planners offering rooms to the early part of the waiting list. Edit: Maybe not – see the comments.

It’s a safe bet that some people on the list have already secured a room through other channels, and no doubt some of them will want to stick with their alternate lodging (especially if their alternate hotel is across the street, and Travel Planners hands them something ten miles away). That will probably trigger a second round of free rooms next week.

No doubt the process will repeat itself on June 18, when the rest of the deposit becomes non-refundable.

Of course, it all depends on just how many people cancel their reservations to start with. I doubt anyone outside of the travel agency (and maybe CCI) has solid numbers of just how many con-goers are stuck in limbo.

*The way they put it was that they were trying “to identify any rooms already committed that might not be ultimately utilized.” Gotta love corporate-speak.

So I bought a Saturday ticket, drove out for the afternoon, and had a much better time than I expected.

Photos are at Flickr if you want to jump straight to them.

Arrival

For those not familiar with the area, the Anaheim Convention Center is literally across the street from Disney’s California Adventure. There isn’t much in the way of public parking in the area that isn’t attached to a shopping center, a hotel, or Disneyland, but there was plenty of room in the convention center parking structure. Of course, it took more than 10 minutes to get into the structure — longer than I spent on the freeway!

There were two events at the convention center this weekend: Anaheim Comic Con in Hall D, and a Specialty Coffee event in Halls B, C and E. I was half-tempted to find out whether the coffee event was open to the public!

Main Floor

The first thing I saw when stepping onto the main floor was the Red Mist car from Kick-Ass (which opened this weekend). The second thing was the Suicide Girls booth. The third was a long line of people waiting for an event.

There was the usual mix of collectibles dealers, comics dealers, artists, celebrities, the ever-present giant T-shirt booth, prop & costume exhibits, fan groups, etc. There was a heavy Star Wars fan presence (more about that later). The one that really surprised me was the bar that had been set up next to the food service area!

The weird thing: There was virtually no industry presence. I’m not sure I saw a single comic publisher booth. In the battle between C2E2 and Wizard, the publishers came down solidly on the side of C2E2, not even bothering to send a token delegation to Anaheim. It can be done. Last year, DC did full-up DC Nation panels at both WonderCon (California) and MegaCon (Florida) the same weekend.

Space!

Compared to WonderCon two weeks ago, the main floor seemed bigger, but took less time to explore. Judging by the floor plans, the area actually used looks about the same, but the breakdown was different:

• Registration was handled at the front of the hall, not in the lobby or another room.
• The back was blocked off for staging.
• There were lunch tables at one side near the food service. (This was sorely missing at WonderCon!)
• Artist’s Alley was quite a bit smaller.
• The celebrity autograph area was huge.

It was probably comparable to the last Wizard World Los Angeles, except that I remember a lot of empty space at that con, a bigger Artist’s Alley, and a smaller celebrity area. I’d actually guess that the celebrity area at this con took up about 1/4 of the floor space!

One annoying thing: the main floor was at one end of the convention center. The programming rooms were at the opposite end. Because of the coffee con in between, to get to the panels, you had to go outside, then walk along the entire length of the convention center, then go back inside and up to the second level.

Star Wars and Batman

The Star Wars presence was probably a mix of two things: 1. Regional groups aren’t going to Chicago. 2. It’s the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back.

That included groups such as the 501st Legion, the Saber Guild, LA Jedi, and a group that builds working droids.

The Sabre Guild had a prime spot near the T-shirt booth and had set up a ring to perform mock lightsaber battles and demonstrate other skills. Sort of like a mix of fencing and tall flags with lightsabers. They also had music from the movies playing continuously all day, broken up occasionally by the disco version of the Star Wars theme. There were a couple of really good Aayla Secura costumes in that group, and a little girl wearing a Republic Jedi costume who at one point added a Hit-Girl mask and wig and posed in front of the Kick-Ass car.

The other big costume theme was the 1960s Batman TV series — almost certainly because the con had brought together much of the show’s cast, including Adam West, Burt Ward, Julie Newmar, Yvonne Craig and Lee Meriwether, and the Batmobile.

The Sexy

Because of the light industry presence, there weren’t many in the way of booth babes. The Evil Cheerleaders seem to be everywhere these days, plus there were cheerleaders for a energy drink called Bite Me. I was surprised at how many kids were posing with them, actually. Suicide Girls had a big presence, with at least a dozen models, and there was a dance troupe (the Purrfect Angels) who dressed in skimpy versions of super-heroine and sci-fi costumes and danced on a raised stage next to the lunch area.

Then there was the booth placement in the celebrity area, where a pair of 14-year-old girls who had written a science-fiction novel were placed next to a bikini model. Way to send the kids a message, Wizard.

Gollum vs. Uhura

Late in the day, I was walking by where a man dressed (if you can call it that) as Gollum was crawling around, mewling about “My Precious” and showing off a DVD of an independent film with that title. This was at the corner of the celebrity area, where Nichelle Nichols was doing a signing. He crawled into her booth, jumped up on the table, started showing everyone “My Precious,” then turned toward the Star Trek actress. She yelped and started hitting him with a plastic water bottle, at which point he took a dive off the table and tumbled onto the floor, then scurried off.

He did pretty much the same thing with the judges’ table at the costume contest that evening.

Costume Contest

The costume contest was more organized than the one at the last Wizard World LA, though nowhere near as formal as, say the Comic-Con International Masquerade. Most contestants simply walked in one door, past the judges, and out the other. Actually, a lot of them early on hadn’t been told to pause so that the judges could see! A few had prepared simple routines, or at least speeches — including, as I mentioned, Gollum, who made the biggest impression. Some other stand-outs (some for craftsmanship, some for attitude) included Count Chocula, the Angel of Death from Hellboy II, Doctor Octopus, and Silk Spectre.

As I was going through my photos, I found it interesting that I had actually run into a lot of the winners out on the floor: Doctor Octopus, Gollum, Silk Spectre…

Food in Anaheim

Concession stands line the edges between the exhibit halls: coffee, sandwiches, tacos, etc. I only had the coffee, which was decent, though the clerk warned us to use the swizzle sticks and not the spoons, because they might melt! All of the hotels in the convention complex have their own restaurants ranging from casual dining to somewhat more expensive places like Morton’s. The Hilton also has fast food including a Starbucks, Sbarro, Baja Fresh, and a smoothie place.

Across the street you can find standard fast food like Subway. The Ramada has an Indian restaurant with a lunch buffet. If you walk around Disney’s California Adventure to the west, you can get to the Downtown Disney shopping center. If you walk east along Katella, you can get to the Anaheim Garden Walk, which has a few mid-range chain restaurants (California Pizza Kitchen, P.F. Chang’s, etc.) and a food court that’s currently running at half capacity. Unless your name is Barry, Jay, Wally or Bart, figure on about 20 minutes to get there. The blocks are large and the traffic signals are long.

Tip: If you plan to cross the street, go out to Katella along the convention center first, not out to Harbor through the hotels. It’s just as long, but there are trees and shade.

What If…Comic-Con International?

Assuming the other halls are about the same size as this one, I think the full convention center could probably handle something the size of the Comic-Con International exhibit floor. The main hurdle is that only about 1/3 of the wall between each section is actually removable (the middle section is permanent, holding the concession counters). Sure, it would make it easy to divide the main floor up into themes — one section for comics, one for movies and TV, one for games, etc. — but it would also create bottlenecks.

I didn’t get a good sense of the meeting rooms, since the con only used a couple of rooms, and I don’t remember much from the last convention I attended since the expansion. (It was a WorldCon, and I experienced the whole thing through the combined haze of a summer cold and Day-Quil.)

There is room to spill over into the nearby hotels, though. There are at least four in the same complex, and I know at least two of them have a good supply of meeting rooms and ballrooms. They’re closer to the center than anything in San Diego other than the Marriott, and they don’t require you to cross a busy street or railroad tracks.

Check out my full set of photos on Flickr.

We only really planned on going Saturday, but I was half-hoping we’d get there in time to catch some of Friday afternoon. That…didn’t work out so well.

Saturday morning around 11:30, we walked down to the Moscone Center in surprisingly clear weather (it was supposedly 50°F, but the sun was warm enough that a T-shirt was just fine), followed a series of people giving directions, and breezed through the line to pick up our badges. I think we were on the main floor within 10 minutes of entering the building.

Main Floor and Costumes

The convention seemed more crowded than I remember last year — despite the move to Easter weekend. There were places on the main floor where traffic just stopped. The mezzanine balcony, which I remember being a relatively empty traffic corridor last year, had somehow become a popular hang-out spot and photo-op location. Several panels proved to be too popular for the rooms they’d been placed in. People were even lining up three hours ahead for Geoff Johns.

It’s not a San Diego-level crowd yet, but it’s getting denser. Fortunately they still have room to expand. They’re only using two-thirds of the main floor space.

Still, they could really use some more seating out in the lower lobby with the food services. In three years, I don’t think I’ve ever sat at a table for lunch at this con.

Neither of us noticed any obvious costume theme. Two years ago the place was full of GI Joe costumes. Last year it was Watchmen. This year nothing really stood out. I don’t think I even saw as many steampunks as usual. Admittedly, I no longer really notice people in Stormtrooper, Mandalorian, or Jedi outfits, so they could have had the entire 501st Legion wandering around and I wouldn’t have noticed.

You can see all of my photos of the con on Flickr.

Panels

Since I’d missed the DC and Geoff Johns panels on Friday, I went to the DC Editorial panel (covered at Speed Force). Instead of being an actual presentation like last year, it was an hour and a half of question-and-answer. Unfortunately, the timing blocked several other things I’d considered attending, and I’m not sure it was worth it.

Never Give Up. Never Surrender

The best panel either of us caught was the mock Galaxy Quest “23rd Anniversary Celebration” that Katie attended. The panelists made a point that it was actually the 30th anniversary, as we were all there to celebrate our love for the original show and not “that movie,” and the original airdate was several years earlier than non-Questarians reckoned. And it went from there. The audience members who came up with the best answers to “trivia” questions about the original show were rewarded with t-shirts for the upcoming “Next Generation” show (it was apparently picked up for a full season!). There was a lot of speculation about how the new version might go too far in being Darker and Edgier, or that someone had heard there might be a movie with all younger-and-hotter actors and more lens flares than plot. Essentially, a free-for-all to both lament and celebrate the current state of SF media productions.

Missing In Action

Several panels were canceled when presenters couldn’t make it. The Comics Arts Conference session on “Urban and Political Mysteries” had to replace two of its three presenters. The reexamination of Batman: The Long Halloween went on as scheduled, looking at the evidence without taking the confessions at face value. Rounding out the timeslot were an examination of different narrative ways to make the shift from Silver Age to modern storytelling, and the comparison of Wonder Woman to Canadian heroine Nelvana of the Northern Lights.

Another casualty was the Real Archaeology of Indiana Jones, which I caught last year, but Katie missed because it was opposite a special-effects makeup demo. She was hoping to catch it this year, and I was kind of curious as to whether he’d be covering anything different this time.

Goals (or Lack Thereof)

I think part of the problem I had with the con this year was that I didn’t really have any goals in mind. I wasn’t looking for any books. I didn’t have a huge stack of items to get autographed (partly because I didn’t want to carry around Comic Book Tattoo, and partly because I didn’t get around to looking through the guest list or my recent acquisitions). My to-do list consisted of one panel and a couple of artists, and was basically done by 2:00. Usually I make at least one full pass through the main floor, but this time I just kind of wandered aimlessly.

Around 4:00, Katie called me to tell me that her costume shoes had practically killed her feet (she had a really nasty blister, too), and she was ready to go back to the hotel — but couldn’t imagine walking even the short distance. I picked up her sneakers, and then we both went back for takeout and Lord of the Rings. (Thank you, TBS, for your conveniently-timed marathon!)

Hotel: Staying at the Marriott

I think this is the first time I’ve stayed at an actual headquarters hotel for a convention. For the most part, we didn’t notice…except for the Power Girl/Terra photoshoot we saw in the atrium Sunday morning.

The Marriott Marquis is just a short block away from Moscone South, and across the street from the Mosser, where we stayed last year. The rooms are a more typical size, though, and of course the building is more modern. Oddly enough, the Mosser is a better choice for Internet access. The Marriott has free wifi in the lobby, but the rooms are wired only — and they want $13/night for it! (We mostly went without, and just ran down to the lobby for uploads and downloads.)

Restaurants: We were disappointed to find that Mission Steak is gone — or, rather, has been converted to “Mission Grille,” which had a decent enough brunch, but isn’t open for dinner anymore. Despite what the outdated ads in the elevators said. The concierge assured us that the other bar-restaurants in the hotel were open for dinner hours and would serve full meals, but neglected to mention that the 4th Street Bar and Deli had just been closed for renovations the day before. The menu at The View lounge didn’t seem much bigger than a typical bar menu either, the $19 Kobe cheeseburger notwithstanding. The view from our table was a wide city panorama, rain-soaked in typical San Francisco fashion, and we got to watch the fog slowly thicken until the Bay Bridge towers were just hints in the mist. (The picture window with its radial supports reminded me of the Gotham Clock Tower, but apparently it’s become known as the Death Star Bar.) We didn’t visit Bin 55, as neither of us is a wine drinker and their food menu is half the size of their wine list.

So, we didn’t make it to WonderCon today. We got out later than planned, and ended up hitting rush hour traffic in San Jose, which cleared up after a while, but dropped back to parking lot status as we approached Downtown San Francisco. By then it was raining pretty steadily as well.

Then I made the mistake of relying on Google Maps for directions to the hotel. One way streets, poorly labeled streets, streets where cars have to share with cable cars, trolleys and pedestrians… We missed our turn at one point & had to go around a few blocks to get back on track, then got stuck on Market Street where we could only move one carlength at a time.

Somewhere in all this, I drove over a bump. I didn’t think anything of it, since the car wasn’t moving fast enough to notice any change in how it handled. The low tire pressure light came on, but I see that in cold weather sometimes. It was only after we’d reached the hotel (on the left side of a one-way street) — and been handed a flyer with directions to the parking entrance — that someone in another car told us that the front right tire was flat.

Great. Flat tire, San Francisco, rush hour traffic, rain, and no parking. I decided it was better not to drive around 4 more blocks on the dead tire, and pulled over into a loading zone to change it. Still on the left side, of course.

I spent the next 20 minutes squatting or kneeling in a puddle, changing a tire in the rain while cars whizzed by two feet away. That was “fun.” Add in the fact that it was my first flat in this car, and it’s been long enough since I looked at everything when it was new that I had to look for everything, and the fact that the provided lugnut wrench doesn’t give me enough leverage…(Note to self: hang onto that ancient 4-pronged tire wrench. It works a lot better than the tool that comes with the car.)

The adrenalin rush was wearing off as we finally checked into the hotel, to the point that the clerk actually asked me if I was OK. Some boxed juice, a snack, and a hot shower later, I was ready to do things like discuss what we were going to do tonight and looking for a place to eat dinner.

As it turns out, I’m sitting in a hotel laundromat washing the street puddle out of my jeans, while Katie watches Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring. Not my first choice, but what can you do?

Next: finding a nearby place to get the tire fixed or replaced before get back on the road.

ADDED: Call customer service if you placed a request but haven’t heard back from them. There may have been a problem with the email (at their end, at your ISP, or anywhere in between), or there may have been an issue with the reservation that prevented them from processing it or sending the confirmation. But do it soon, so you don’t miss the deadline to secure it with a deposit.

Some rooms may open up when the deposit deadline passes. Maybe. This is probably only an option if you submitted a reservation request but didn’t get a room, and it assumes that (a) not everyone will manage to make a deposit in time and (b) Travel Planners will move on to the wait list with the rooms that free up. I wouldn’t rely on this one.

Book directly, but be prepared to spend more. And be prepared to try a lot of hotels before you find one with available rooms, or else go through a travel site like Expedia, Travelocity, Priceline or Hotwire.

Look into short-term condo rentals. Hotels aren’t the only way to rent a room. You could make your trip into a week-long vacation!

Find roommates to share the cost of that directly-booked room. Or find roommates who already have a room. A lot of the downtown hotels actually have suites, so you might even have some privacy. (One thing to watch out for, though: hotels will often charge more for extra people.) If you don’t personally know anyone to share a room with, try asking in your online communities.

Stay with friends or relatives in the area. Obviously not an option for everyone, but again, you can check with online friends.

Stay farther out and commute. If all you need is a place to sleep and shower, you don’t have to stay downtown. Mission Valley and Old Town have trolley service straight to the con, and you can get a 4-day trolley pass for $15.

Try again after cancellation deadlines hit. This year, May 14 is the last day that people can cancel for a full refund, and June 18 is the last day they can cancel for a partial refund. Some rooms always open up around then.

Good luck!

Once you’ve got your lodging situation settled, check out the rest of my Tips for Comic-Con.

1. Medical tape – preventing blisters from costume shoes. (Also, repairs in a pinch)
2. Extra lanyard for your camera
3. Umbrella for outdoor lines
4. Costume-appropriate bag
5. Insoles – you’ll be walking a LOT
6. Burt’s Bees Res-Q Ointment for sunburn in case your sunscreen wears off or otherwise fails
7. Safety pins
8. Reliable writing surface (in case you have paper but not a notebook)
9. Napkins or paper towels (especially if you’re bringing your own food)
10. Extra shirt to go over tank tops to prevent sunburn or backpack friction

Read more Tips for Comic-Con.

It’s located on the bay (of course), near the San Diego Maritime Museum where they have several classic ships permanently anchored and available for tours. If you happen to have an upper-floor room, the views are quite nice. (We were on the second floor, so our view was of the roof of the hotel’s conference center. It’s funny how quickly we got used to the sound of the air conditioner.)

It’s an easy walk to Little Italy (we went out to one of our favorite San Diego restaurants, Indigo Grill, on Wednesday) or the trolley, and on the convention shuttle route.

The rooms were nice, clean and spacious (absolutely huge, compared to the last few places we’ve stayed in San Diego). The bed was comfortable, and they had pillows with two different levels of firmness, so neither of us had any trouble getting to sleep. The hotel restaurant/pub, the Elephant and Castle, is quite good. There’s also a Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse in one tower, and a deli next door. And for those looking to save money on breakfast, the in-room coffee service is a single-cup disposable-basket setup, so that if you want plain hot water for tea or oatmeal, it won’t taste like coffee! Wireless internet access is complimentary, and easy to set up. Our room had locked doors to adjoining rooms on both sides, so a large group could presumably link together at least three rooms into a suite.

The only annoyances were:

Internet access during the convention was absolutely swamped. Sometimes pages just wouldn’t load, and the Flickr uploader actually gave up several times. This would have been less of a problem if I hadn’t been so determined to post photos and blog during the con, though at least with photos it turned out I could (usually) start them before going to bed and let them run overnight. The one night that it just gave up, I tried when we got up at 6 AM and they posted extremely quickly.

The bathroom had a sliding door that didn’t seal. Like the room at the Omni, it blocked light but not sound or airflow. On the plus side, it was actually big enough that we could brush our teeth at the same time.

Overall, though, we really liked it, and agreed that it would be near the top of our list when it came to hotels on the shuttle route. Though if possible I’d really prefer something close enough that we wouldn’t have to rely on the shuttle or other transportation.

Historic San Diego

We drove down after lunch on Saturday and hit Old Town San Diego on the way in. (More Highlander Grog!) I could swear I don’t remember having trouble finding it before, but the last few times it’s been hard to get to even following a map. At least we managed better than we did in December, when we ended up several miles inland before we could find a place to cross the inlet.

I don’t remember much going on the last time we were there, but this time Old Town was in full-on living history mode, complete with tour guides dressed up in 1800s outfits and a horse-and-buggy ride.

I’d booked the Courtyard San Diego Downtown because it’s literally next door to the House of Blues. It took a while to negotiate the one-way streets, but once we arrived, we stepped inside and were blown away by the lobby. It turns out that the hotel used to be the building for the San Diego Trust & Savings bank. After the bank closed in the 1990s, Marriott bought it and converted it to a hotel. The vault, safe deposit rooms, and other rooms on the first floor became a conference center, and the offices on the upper floors became guest rooms. They’ve preserved as much of the old look of the place as possible, down to keeping the mail slots on the former office doors. (Don’t worry, they’re blocked.)

We ate dinner at Chopahn (6th Ave. near F St.), an Afghan restaurant we first visited during last year’s Comic-Con. It was empty when we got there, which I hope was just because we were there on the early side, because the food is great. Another couple arrived while we were eating, but they were the only people we saw other than the waitress. She had started pushing tables together as if they were expecting a larger party later on.

After dinner we wandered the Gaslamp district for a while. I kept making notes of where various hotels or restaurants were located. Eventually I realized I was basically scouting for Comic-Con next month.

Around 7:00 we made our way to the House of Blues.

Concert

That’s when we discovered that we’d been under a misapprehension about the nature of the venue. The only House of Blues we’d been to before was the one in Anaheim at Downtown Disney. It’s a big room with a stage, a balcony, and bars around the edges. I expect the main hall here was probably the same, but Butterfly Boucher was playing the “small room.” I assumed that meant a smaller room of the same type, but really it meant there was an 8-foot-wide stage in the dining area of the bar (the “Voodoo Stage”). Which would have been great if we hadn’t just had a huge dinner. So we ordered drinks, sat and talked, and eventually ordered some sweet potato fries and nibbled.

Note for next time: Arrive at the printed time, grab a table and order dinner there.

From the back of the stage to the edge of the bar can’t have been larger than our living room, and we don’t have a very big living room. It was like listening to someone play at a coffee house, only with better acoustics and most of the people were there to hear them sing. It was a huge contrast to the last time we saw Butterfly Boucher live, from the top section of what was then the Arrowhead Pond (primarily a hockey stadium).

The first opening act, Dawn Mitschele, played a half-hour set starting at 8:00, and the second, Derek Evans, started after about a ten-minute break. They both had a more country-folk sound, which kind of surprised me, since Butterfly Boucher is more rock. They’re both locals, and I wondered whether they might be following her up to LA.

All through the evening, teenagers in formal wear would come walking down the hall past the stage. It turned out that a high school was holding its prom in the main room at the House of Blues. At one point one woman in the audience (of two who did quite a bit of dancing later on) shouted out, “Hello prom people!”

Butterfly (yes, that is her real name) came out around 9:30, spent a few minutes setting up her equipment (including the loop pedal she jokingly referred to as her backup band) and tuning her guitar, then launched into about an hour-long set of music mostly from the new album — though she did break into “Another White Dash” (with an audience participation section) and “I Can’t Make Me” in the middle.

She clearly hadn’t expected to do an encore, but we all kept applauding, and she came back out to sing “Life is Short,” explaining that she hadn’t rehearsed it in over six months and might need help on the lyrics…

After the show we waited in line to meet her, bought a copy of the CD which she signed, talked to her for a few minutes and posed with her for a photo.

Nightlife

After the meet-and-greet, we headed down to the Ghirardelli shop. Ever since the one in South Coast Plaza closed, I have this thing where if I’m in a city with a Ghirardelli store, I have to go there. Neither of us was up for dessert, but they do have a wider selection of their chocolate than you can find in the grocery store.

As typical for a Saturday night, 5th Avenue was absolutely packed with people of all ages and levels of dress going to and from clubs, bars, and restaurants. We dodged over to 6th street on the way back up, but even then ran into a huge crowd around Sin Niteclub [sic] and the Double Deuce. Through the latter bar’s windows we could see a guy trying to ride a mechanical bull. Some of the women we saw walking around had given up on their shoes and were barefoot. Though walking barefoot on the streets of any major city doesn’t sound like a great idea, no matter how much your feet hurt. Eventually we made it back to the hotel.

Sunday Morning

Cafe 222 (2nd Ave. and Island) has quickly become one of our standard spots for breakfast in San Diego, at least when we’re staying downtown. Afterward we hit the farmer’s market (every Sunday morning at 3rd Ave. and J St. — take note, Comic-Con attendees) where we picked up some blueberries and cherries to bring home. Nothing much in the way of stores were open yet, and we had make it up to the LA area for lunch, so we checked out, made another quick stop at Old Town to look for a store we’d stumbled on last December, and got back on the road.

More photos at Flickr, mostly Old Town and some weird stuff in the Gaslamp area.

I’ve been posting old photos to Flickr lately, including some shots from a couple of trips to Las Vegas.

Like this shot of the Flying Saucer Mall — excuse me, the Fashion Show Mall. (I got the initials right!)

Seriously, doesn’t that view just say, “The visitors have landed?”

Maybe they’ll want some Alien Fresh Jerky.

It makes me want to headdesk.

Now, I don’t hate Vegas. I’m not ZOMG in love with it, but I’ve been there more than once and I don’t think it should be removed from the face of the earth. What I believe about Vegas is that it is a law and a destination unto itself, and that everyone should be able to choose whether they go based on the merits of the place, not on the merits of what else might be going on there that isn’t a usual part of the location. Please keep this in mind as I present my list of Reasons Not to Move CCI to Las Vegas:

1. Weather. San Diego may be incredibly hot some years, but it’s coastal. There are breezes a lot of the time, and it’s often quite bearable. Vegas is inland desert and is 99% guaranteed to be nasty hot in July/August. Part of the crazy fun of CCI is seeing costumes on the street, which would become darn near impossible for a lot of people given the temperature.

2. Distance. I’m not talking about the distance for people to get there (though I will in a bit), but the distance between things. It can take over half an hour to get from the front door of one hotel to the front door of the next one over. In San Diego, it’s pretty easy to leave the convention center, go find food that’s not jacked up in price for an inferior product, and come back. In Vegas, unless you take the monorail, that’s a pipe dream, especially given that the convention center is off the Strip and not really near a lot of hotels. Keep reading for more.

3. No public transportation. Well, not NO transportation. There’s the monorail, and there are buses. But the monorail only goes down one side of the Strip, and the traffic on the Strip itself, where the buses run, is a nightmare 24/7. The monorail is not convenient to get to; it runs down the backs of the hotels, and getting to the stations from the street, or vice versa, can take 20 minutes just by itself. (We timed.) Lots of hotels do have shuttle service, but it’s not huge, it’s not universal, and it’s not fantastic. Based on the masses of humanity I’ve seen at the SD Old Town trolley station, I doubt the monorail has enough cars to pack the schedule as full as they’d need to, and I doubt the shuttles will satisfy fans wanting to get to places at specific times. There would need to be charter buses, the way SD does it, but because this is Vegas, they would want either tickets or tips…probably both. Which brings me to:

4. Pay For Play. In Vegas, the dollar is still almighty. You can get a hotel room for $50 a night if you play it right, sure, but you don’t get the perks that identify you to the hotel’s amenities providers as a Good Customer. In some places, if you just want people to be polite to you, you have to pay them. In others, you just get dirty looks if you don’t tip. It’s been said that CCI wouldn’t make a dent in the normal daily Vegas people-traffic; if that’s true, then we’d all be running into this. Think it’s maddening to get slow service because a restaurant in the Gaslamp is full, or because you think you’ve been pegged as a low tipper? Try being in Vegas where they know whether you have spare change. Doesn’t matter if the place has only two parties in the section; if one of them is a Vegas regular and has paid to be part of their Premier Club, he’ll always get better service than the other party. I’m imagining the cheaper hotel restaurants being overrun with congoers who don’t understand the ethos (if you can even call it that); the saddest part is that if they voice any displeasure, they simply won’t be heard because all that’s happened is that they’ve run into how Vegas deals with those they perceive as cheapskates. They discourage you from coming back until you’re ready to spend. And,

5. Everything costs more. More accurately, it’s a case of the substandard being cheaper and the quality merchandise being more expensive. You can get a lot of pure crap for very little money, but you have to be willing to accept really crappy crap. Most stores are either souvenir dives or designer boutiques. I’d bet even the toothbrushes in most of the dives are emblazoned with “LAS VEGAS.”

And the food. Every megahotel in the vicinity of the Strip has a restaurant hierarchy. There is at least one posh place, one just a bit below it, one just a bit below that, a buffet, a theme bar, and a taco/burger/coffee stand. Most of the “nice” restaurants in SD are comparable in price to the lowest-price nice places in Vegas, and there aren’t nearly as many tony upscale spots. Not only that, but the cheap places are much greater in number in SD, and easier to get to (see #2 and 3 above). If there are more restaurants in a megahotel, there is usually a theme place that may be either very posh or very casual, followed by a doubling of one of the lower-priced ranks. They’ll also have bars around the casino floor(s), and occasionally a cookie or ice-cream shop. If the hotel is not a new “mega” type, they’ll have a coffee shop and a nice place, and some coffee/ice cream/burgers. The Stratosphere is the best for cheap eats, but it’s not close to anything. (The biggest souvenir shop in the city doesn’t count.) And at the other end of the Strip, the MGM Grand isn’t bad for it either, though their counter service is tucked away into the winding halls at the back of the place. Sure, there’s fast food dotted around here and there, but chances are that you’re not going to want to make the 45-minute trek to the McDonald’s when you can go a monorail stop away and find the cheap food in the hotels on the monorail line. Which will be mobbed, because nobody’s going to want to take the time to hike across the street and hunt through a megahotel for something they can afford.

Actually, there is one thing that doesn’t cost more: alcohol. Three guesses why.

6. No commuting. To those who come in from, say, Virginia, this may not sound like a big deal. But it’s just plain fact: there are fewer people living within 2 hours’ drive of Vegas than within 2 hours’ drive of SD. With the con in SD, people can even stay with friends (or in cheaper hotels) in LA, OC, or even Riverside, and take a train or other mass conveyance into town for the con. Not so easy in Vegas. Which means that a lot more people would be staying in town, filling up services and probably driving up hotel prices out of sheer demand. Another consideration: Hollywood is not close enough to Vegas for big-name stars to come out by bus for just one day. There’d have to be planes involved, or hotel stays; and with the way insurance works, the cost might be too great for the perceived benefit…especially considering how many lowlifes decide it’s their right and privilege to post exclusive footage to YouTube five minutes after it’s been aired. Dragon*Con suggests that there would still be plenty of star power, but such things as bringing in large portions of new movies’ casts might become much less feasible.

In the interest of fairness, there are a few reasons Vegas would be superior to SD for a giant con of any type:

1A. Parking. Vegas has parking. Acres of it, all over the place, for a lot less than you pay in SD. Anyone driving in would be able to park, for as long as they wanted, probably even wherever they wanted. Then again, #6 above might mean fewer people wanting to park in the first place.

2A. More floor space. The LVCC has nearly four times the floor space of the SD facility. To someone who’s been stuck in foot traffic on the floor at least once every year, this sounds like absolute heaven. Even if the con used only half the floor space available, prospects might be a little brighter for those of us slogging through the whole thing. On the flip side, they don’t have much more in the way of meeting room space; chances are, there’d be a bunch of exhibit space being used as the equivalent of Ballroom 20 and the 6A-F rooms. I’m not sure from the floor plan whether any of the large floor divisions is set up to be the equivalent of Hall H; I may need MeetingMatrix to find out. (Because only a meeting planner could ever possibly have a legitimate desire to know the details of the center.) Also, there are multiple small convention/event centers in Vegas; one of these could easily be used for, say, an exclusive screening of something at night. Ticket sales for 12,000 seats in the Mandalay Bay center would probably cover the rental cost and the rights, with some left over for the Cause of the Day.

3A. More hotel rooms. The Vegas visitor site boasts “over 140,000 hotel rooms,” which sounds fantastic. Throw in the fact that many congoers share rooms, and you have a recipe for much easier reservations than can be had in SD. Downside: the same room can vary in price by as much as $300 from Tuesday to Friday night, so you can bet they’ll be picking a more middling point on their scale for con-block reservations. And this is Vegas, so see #5 above. They’re going to do everything in their power to be sure their Premier Club regulars are able to get rooms if they want them.

If Las Vegas wants CCI, it’s in the way Irvine wants a university: they want the benefits without having the necessary people around. Congoers for CCI, by and large, are not well-heeled yuppies with expense accounts, and we are not there to spend our money at the blackjack tables. The Vegas I know is not enthusiastic about our kind of congoer overrunning its streets and its bars, and it has a much higher threshold for good financial behavior than San Diego—where we already fall short. Let’s do ourselves a favor and start looking for better solutions to the crunch.