What I learned from my first D23

[Deleted member 107043]

Yeah, I'm not a con person. I've been to some smaller comic cons and they were too much for me. I know a lot of people love them, and more power to them.

You know it's bad when the organizers of Dreamforce brought in a cruise ship to house attendees because every room within 50 miles of SF was booked.

 

[Curious Constance]

I love the idea of D23. Would love walking around and seeing the exhibits all inside an air conditioned building out of the sun. Love the thought of special merchandise only sold there. Not that I'm a big collector, but I love finding the odd treasure here and there. But in reality, I don't think it would be worth it for us. I'm not willing to wait hours for pretty much anything, and the crowds of people would pretty much ruin it for me.

It might be interesting just roaming the hallways all day hoping for a glimpse of Bob. When I meet him, I envision putting on the performance of my lifetime. Rather than my normal quiet, shy self, I'd be outgoing, charming, and witty. How could he resist?

 

[nerdboyrockstar]

This leads me to my next point. Because of the size of the venue vs the crowd sizes, they don't have enough exhibits to properly absorb crowds. You will wait. You will wait a lot. Let me take Saturday for an example. It took me about two hours just to get inside the expo. Once I got inside, I immediately went to the stage pass line to begin waiting for the 12:30 stage passes to open up, which was still an hour away. After that, it took another hour to get through the line to get my stage pass. From there, I rushed down to Hall E to wait for the Parks and Resorts panel, which was a couple hours. During which panel they gave away surprise fantasmic passes to be redeemed at stage pass. Redeeming said ticket took another couple hours in line (And also forced me to miss my panel that I had waited for a stage pass for that morning, more about this later) Needless to say, you will stand in line a LOT. Stores, panels, experiences. They're all waits that outdo any that you'll see in parks.

This sounds like my nightmare. Sad to say I'll never do a D23 unless I'm able to purchase a VIP pass.