What happened Comic-Con? You Used to Be Cool….

Hi folks,

I usually sit on the fence when it comes to policies and procedures; it’s just not my thing. However, I am a self-confessed nerd, a gamer, an IT Nut and a comic fan; so when I heard the following story I thought it was time to step off the fence and just write a bit of a rant.

So the San Diego Comic-Con has been running since 1970, which I suppose makes this its 40th Anniversary. I’ve got a lot of friends who are into comics (comes with the territory) and friends in the states who’ve attended this conference before and the general feedback I’ve got is that it is a very cool conference run by comic fans for comic fans, and it is because of this feedback that I was extremely surprised to hear the following story:

My friend Grace (@GracePearl) was all set to attend Comic-Con, tickets bought and payed for; flights bought and paid for; flying all the way from Ireland to San Diego for the Comic-Con conference. However, there was a snag; Grace’s tickets were ordered by one of her friends and the wrong name was put on the ticket (I know this was a mistake; but I’m sure not a unique one). Unfortunately to attend Comic-Con an attendee must have ID that fully matches the name on the ticket; however as this was not possible both Grace and I contacted Comic-Con to see if they could assist us with this issue.

We sent emails to the general information email address listed on their website  (cci-info@comic-con.org) however, we received absolutely no response and waited weeks for a follow-up. In the end I reached out to some of my ex-colleagues from Google and managed to get an inside contact who might have been able to assist us with this issue.

Unfortunately Comic-Con were far from helpful; they basically said Tickets are non-transferable so you made a mistake and if you wouldn’t mind it would be very nice if you went away now… Comic-Con’s website says that Comic-Con can provide official authorization to transfer Comic-Con tickets to another party; so I can’t possibly see how with everything taken into account they refused to assist here. Their exact text states:

“By registering for a badge, paid or complimentary, you agree not to sell, trade or give your comp code, barcode confirmation or badge to anyone else without written permission from Comic-Con International“

So all we need is for someone at Comic-Con to confirm that the ticket can be transferred and everything here would be right as rain. The flights can’t be cancelled and everything has been paid for and spending the week of the conference in San Diego without attending, having flown all that way would be heart breaking.

Comic-Con you used to be cool; you used to be about the fans, the nerds and geeks without whom you couldn’t afford to exist so I am sure that there is something that you can do to assist Grace here; don’t be another corporation thats forgotten its roots and gotten to big for its boots. It’s not a difficult thing to change the name on a ticket when you consider the effort that is being made to attend here.

So to those of you reading this (outside of Comic-Con; if they ever read this), who like me believe Grace deserves the right to attend; this is what I’m asking. If you want to help the underdog (and c’mon everyone loves the underdog), re-tweet this story, link in on your Facebook profiles, send a nice little tweet to @Comic_Con and see if they can help out here. On their website it states that they can provide official authorization to transfer ticket ownership; so surely they can assist.

As always I appreciate any help you can provide and any comments/feedback as always greatly appreciated.

- Ken

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