San Diego Comic-Con is back, but this year with both the actors and writers on strike, many of the big panels have either been canceled, or replaced with celebrity-less screenings. Though that doesn’t really affect the Wednesday night preview night.

I woke up early to participate in the annual blood drive and get my free Marvel t-shirt for donating. I also took this chance to walk around and take some photos of the the building wraps going up and activations being built:

I had some time to kill before Preview Night started, so I headed back to my hotel to relax. However, I saw a tweet by The San Diego Comic-Con Unofficial Blog, who is doing their annual Prize Mule giveaways, and it happened to be a photo of the Good Burger 2 wrap on the front of my hotel. The first person who finds the SDCC Blog person and says the magic phrase they tweeted wins the prize. So I quickly headed downstairs, but by the time I got there, they were gone. I was just about to head back upstairs when I saw another tweet, and this time it was a Good Omens wrap. I knew right where that was from my photo collection journey earlier in the morning. So I headed around the corner, found the person holding the Prize Mule, and claimed the prize, saying “That’s Mine!”

Convention Center Preview Night

I met up with some friends to get in line to check out the show floor. I didn’t have a lot of time this year as I had a press preview for one of the activations scheduled 90 minutes into preview night. After we were let in, I immediately headed for Paramount’s Star Trek Strange New Worlds booth, where there were two photo/video opportunities. In the first, you sit down in Pike’s captain’s chair and they do a short video zoom on you. For the second, you select 1 of 4 different backgrounds, and someone with a video camera pans over you to create a 5-second video. Afterwards, you enter your email into a tablet and the videos are mailed to you.

This year Paramount has a bit of a scavenger hunt, where you need to point your phone’s camera at 7 different locations around SDCC to unlock different stamps, and if you collect all 7 stamps, you get a special prize. Well, 4 of these Paramount Passport stamps were located at booths in the convention center. So after scanning Pike’s photo on the wall of the Star Trek booth, we quickly found Comedy Central’s Digman booth to get a second stamp. This was another photo opp booth but we didn’t have time to wait in line. We got a photo of one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the side of Nickelodeon’s booth to unlock a third stamp. The fourth stamp was at a booth for CBS’s Ghosts, but this was on the complete opposite side of the convention center. Unfortunately, by the time we got there, the line had been capped for 30 minutes, and we wouldn’t have had time to wait. For that booth, you enter a room, where the ghosts will decide your fate, and you see if you will be “sucked off”. You also get a T-shirt at the end. I will have to try to get back to this booth some other day, but we did manage to at least unlock our fourth stamp.

AMC’s The Immortal World of Anne Rice Activation Press Preview

This year AMC took over their usual space across from the Hilton Gaslamp hotel, but instead of a Walking Dead experience, this year the area had been transformed into a New Orleans street for an interactive experience for Anne Rice’s Immortal Universal (Interview With The Vampire and Mayfair Witches). Before entering, we were handed a tote and a Visitor’s Guide.

Upon entering the experience, we were quickly whisked away into a dark speakeasy, where a young man and his girlfriend were doing their best to sell the crowd on the possibility of immortality and a fountain of youth.

We were given a shot of this youth inducing elixir just as the police arrived to break things up, and we headed back outside.

As we mingled with the townsfolk—which included some femmes de la nuit, police officers, artists and performers—we discovered that this town of Storyville has been having an issue with people going missing. While no one could prove it, they all seem to suspect that these disappearances have something to do with a man named Lestat who lives at the end of the street. As we stopped off at the various shops, we were given items and received punches on our Visitor’s Guide. One woman handed us notepads to jot down any leads we might have for those investigating the the missing people. We stopped off to talk with one of the Mayfair witches, who offered us a choice of magical wards (bay, mint, sage or rosemary) or an effigy, along with instructions on how to use it. And we also received some sheet music for Lestat’s “Come To Me”.

Once we made it to the end of the street, we came across two very welcoming vampires, who were eager for us to join them in their home. We were offered some beignets and a choice of posters.

Much like last year’s House of the Dragon experience, the actors remained in character the whole time, providing a really fun, immersive experience. (And the donuts were great too!)

Afterwards, we headed over to Den of Geek’s Opening Night Party at the Horton Grand Hotel for the film Project K, for some food and drinks.

Look for my Day 1 recap soon.