Last year, San Diego Comic-Con took place at a time when both the actors and the writers were on strike, which caused many panels to either be canceled, or replaced with celebrity-less screenings. However, this year things were back in full swing, with actors and writers galore gracing the con.
I had arrived a day early this year and had already picked up my badge and bag and was ready for preview night.
This year I was staying at the Hilton Gaslamp again, and the elevators were wrapped to celebrate Abbott Elementary, which instantly set the mood for the weekend.
I woke up early to participate in the annual blood drive and get my free Marvel t-shirt for donating (this year was Deadpool & Wolverine themed). And after grabbing some breakfast with friends, I took the opportunity to walk around and take some photos of the building wraps going up and activations being built…
The Paramount+ Lodge Activation Press Preview
My first official event of Preview Night was visiting the press preview for Paramount+’s The Lodge activation. They introduced this last year as a way to showcase many of the films and TV shows either on or coming to the streaming service, and it was back this year in the same location, but with an updated offering of activities.
Upon entering The Lodge, we were handed a badge on a retractable holder. At the bottom of the badge were tear-off tickets to redeem for 2 drinks and a slice of pizza. We immediately headed to the booth that was set up for Star Trek Universe, where you could make a custom T-shirt. Using a tablet, you selected up to three out of a dozen or so logos to appear either horizontally across or vertically down the front of the shirt, as well as one of about ten sayings to be printed across the back of the shirt. Behind the counter, people were hard at work ironing on the pictures and using a really neat wand to print the saying on the back. It all moved very quickly, and once we got our shirts, we proceeded to the next station. The Ink Master booth was back offering spray-on temporary tattoos, and so I got the same DoodleBob tattoo I got at last year’s activation. This was perfect as next door was the SpongeBob booth, where a giant inflatable jellyfish tank has been set up. After being greeted by SpongeBob himself, we then grabbed a net and tried to catch jellyfish that were “swimming” (aka blowing) around the giant tank. Based on how many jellyfish you were able to catch in 20 seconds, you were given either a bottle bubbles or a pair of SpongeBob sunglasses (we won the bubbles). After this, we proceeded to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pizza parlor, where I used the voucher from my badge to get a slice of pepperoni pizza (they were offering either pepperoni, cheese or gluten free), and also cashed in one of my drink tickets to get a non-alcoholic fruit juice based drink.
After finishing the pizza, we headed into the left half of the activation, where there was a huge bar along the back wall. But first we encountered a crime scene from Dexter: Original Sin, where you could use a black light flashlight to uncover various messages and blood splatter left on the living room furniture. There were also some slot machines set up for Tulsa King, where they would hand you some coins to play, but there wasn’t really anything to win. In the opposite corner of the room, there was a small station for Criminal Minds Evolution where you could look through clues to solve a crime, though most people just used it as a photo opp. Nest to this was a room for CBS’s Ghosts, where some folks behind a counter would let you sample scents inspired by each of the show’s ghosts. They also handed out little vials of scents for you to take home. Finally, there was a station for the movie IF, where you would sit down on a bench and they would take a photo of you. In the resulting photo, you would find yourself sitting next to your own personalized imaginary friend.
Overall, things ran very smoothly during this press preview, and we had plenty of time to visit all of the stations. While I didn’t think it was quite as good as last year’s The Lodge offering, I still quite enjoyed the experience.
Adult Swim’s Pirate Parrrty Press Prrreview
Next, we took a long walk to the back side of the convention center for the press preview of Adult Swim’s Pirate Parrrty activation. In the center of the space was a large mast for a pirate ship, and surrounding this were various rides, games and photo opps celebrating many of Adult Swim’s animated offerings. First was a pirate ship where you could look in the cannon holes to see dioramas inspired by the Adult Swim promos. Next up was a giant slide (we opted to skip some of the more physical elements for fear of getting injured before even the first day of the con). Next to this was a Limo Shark photo opp, but it was still wet from being freshly painted. Next to this was another photo opp for Primal, where you could take a photo of yourself riding a dinosaur. Then there was a rope ladder challenge for Rick and Morty, where you tried to climb your way across a precarious rope ladder and pull a rope and ring a bell to escape a monster. I saw younger folks in far better shape than myself fail to do so, so I opted to pass on that one as well. Next up was something more my pace, a tossing game for Smiling Friends, where you tried to toss bean bags of the other characters into the mouth of a giant Mr. Frog. Next to this was a big stage that would host various performances and events over the course of the weekend. The final two stations were a photo opp with a standee of the characters from Royal Crackers and a big inflatable house for new show Common Side Effects—after entering the building in groups of 6, they would pretty much just show a trippy trailer for the upcoming series. Throughout the event, they had people walking around handing out random things like pirate hats or bandannas. Sadly I never got either of these, but I did manage to score an inflatable Pickle Rick pool toy. It seemed like during the regular event they would be handing out a lot more stuff, as prizes based on how well you did at the various games and rides. Overall, it was a fun experience, and those who watch a lot of these shows should really enjoy it.
Convention Center Preview Night
This was the first year I hadn’t lined up hours ahead of time for the opening of the convention floor. So by the time we finally got in, the lines for things were already huge. We got in line at the Star Trek booth, where they had a photo opp based on the “The Menagerie” episode. It took about an hour to get through the line, but they had various props and replicas to look at as you wound your way through the booth. Once it was your turn, they took a series of photos and had you pretended like you were on show for the aliens, as a creature in their zoo. (After all this waiting, the next day we got an email offering VIP access to the booth to skip the line…had we known ahead of time, we would have tried something else!)
Next we headed over to the Sony Television booth, which had sections for The Boys, Cobra Kai, and Twisted Metal, with various scheduled activates each day. All of the tickets for the custom t-shirts for The Boys had been given out for the day, but we did get a Twisted Metal lollipop.
The nearby Disney/Hulu booth was handing out their usual poster tubes, but they had run out at that time as well. They had a photo booth where you could have your photo taken in front of several different Disney-owned TV show backdrops—I chose Doctor Who.
We wandered around a little bit more but didn’t do too much on the floor that night. As we were leaving, I picked up a couple a SDCC-exclusive TARDISes for a friend from the Titan booth. They also had some prototypes of new figures coming this Christmas on display—they told me they had literally just been carved the day before.
The Paramount+ Lodge Return
We had tickets for the regular general access 9pm timeslot of the Paramount+ Lodge, so we figured we would go hit it up again. It was quite the different experience this second time around. Folks must have been alerted about the T-Shirts, because we got in line 30 minutes early and by the time we got into the activation, we just made it into the T-shirt line before it was capped! And while we were waiting, just 20 minutes into our time slot, we were told that they had already run out of pizza! Once we finally got our shirts, we just grabbed a drink at the bar and left.
Hero Within Energize Lounge Preview Night
Before calling a night, we stopped by the press preview of Hero Within’s Energize Lounge, where we got a preview of the various Star Trek-themed products they were going to have for sale over the weekend. The first thing we saw was a Star Trek wine advent calendar and were given a sample bottle of the blue Andorian wine that’s included in it. We met Twitter celebrity (at least to us) Tony Kim, the CEO of Hero Within. We were also given some samples of their new cold brew coffee products, and got a look at some of their Star Trek jackets and other apparel that was for sale.
We headed back to our hotel to prepare for what was going to be a really full first official day of SDCC 2024!
Look for my Day 1 recap soon.
