San Diego Comic-Con 2018 Open Registration Tips

Open Registration for San Diego Comic-Con 2018 will take place Saturday, December 9, at 9:00am PT! Read on for some tips that will help get you through the SDCC 2018 badge sale.

1. Confirm eligibility.  Open Registration is only open to those who had a valid and confirmed Comic-Con Member ID created before November 27, 2017 at 9:30am PT. However, if you purchased Preview Night during Returning Registration, you are ineligible. If you are eligible, when you log into your Comic-Con Member ID account, you will see the green “OK CCI’18 Attendee Open Reg” check mark appear in the upper right corner, and confirmation within the “Registration Info” tab. If this does not apply to you, then you will have to wait until Open Registration for SDCC 2019. If you haven’t already, make sure you sign up for a Comic-Con Member ID, as you’ll need this in order to participate next time!
2. Work as a team and work out the details ahead of time. You can buy badges for up to three people, which includes yourself and two other people, but only if they are also eligible for Open Registration. You’ll have a better chance of getting a badge if you team up with other people. Make sure you have everyone’s last names and Member IDs. If it so happens that someone else buys your badge before you get into a registration session, you will still be able to purchase for three other eligible attendees if you get into a registration session later. In this case, enter the last name and Member ID of one of the other people for which you are buying a badge, because if you enter your own info, the system will identify you as already having a badge.
3. Free up funds on your credit card. You can only use one credit card to make the purchase, so make sure you have enough money available to cover the cost of all the badges you’ll be buying. See badge pricing below:
   
4. Use a desktop or laptop computer. The registration process may not work correctly on a mobile device or tablet.
5. Turn off your computer’s power save mode. While in the waiting room, you might be sitting at your computer for a significant amount of time without doing anything. You don’t want your computer to power down during this time!
6. Locate your registration code and the link to the waiting room, and enter the waiting room sometime after 8:00am and before 9:00am PT. You will need your unique registration code in order to enter the waiting room. If you are eligible, your code and the link can be found in the email that Comic-Con International sent you on December 6 (check your spam folder if you don’t see it!), or you can also find it your Member ID account. (Note: you may want to copy and paste the info and save it somewhere with easy access in case you have email issues on the day of the badge sale. The Member ID site is also usually hit with a lot of traffic that morning as well, so you may not be able to rely on getting the info from there if you wait until Saturday morning.) Arriving early to the waiting room does not give you priority over those that arrive later, as it is all random. Just make sure you log into the waiting room before 9:00am PT, or else you will be not be able to enter. Note that your personal registration code will only authorize one device and one browser, so don’t give it away to anyone else, and don’t try to use it more than once!
7. Test your browser settings. Prior to logging in to the waiting room, you’ll be given a chance to test your browser settings by clicking on a link. You can click here to go ahead and test your settings.
8. Don’t use multiple browser tabs. Speaking of browsers, if you happen to have more than one registration code you’re trying to buy badges with, don’t use multiple tabs within the same browser. Open a separate browser for each code, meaning one Chrome browser, one Firefox browser, etc.
9. Be ready to wait, but also ready to spring into action.  You could be sitting at your computer for an hour or more, staring at the spinning blue circle, waiting for your turn at a registration session. Therefore, you might want to use the restroom before 9:00am, and have any food or beverages already at your computer so you don’t have to get up while the sale is going on. You could be selected for a registration session at any time, for which you will have 15 minutes to complete the transaction.
10. DO NOT REFRESH. DO NOT USE THE “BACK” BUTTON. This could severely interrupt your registration session and cause you to lose out on your badges.
11. Take screen shots to document your progress, but don’t share them on social media!  If you make it into a registration session, take screen shots of your progress in case something goes wrong. A few years ago, we were in the process of buying 4-day + Preview Night badges, when we encountered a white screen. We sent screen shots to CCI, proving that we had been in a registration session, and they took care of us. BUT — don’t post any photos on social media where you can see the URL of your waiting room or registration session, as it contains your personal registration code! Someone else could then steal your code and kick you out of your session.
12. Badges will be mailed directly to each attendee, but only to a United States address. CCI is once again using RFID technology for SDCC 2018 badges, so they will be mailing out badges instead of requiring you to pick them up on site. Badges will be sent to the address each attendee has listed as their shipping address under the “Contact Info” tab in their Member ID account. However, this only applies if your address is a United States address. If you are an international attendee and enter an international address as your shipping address in your Member ID account, you will still have to pick up your badge on site. But if you are an international attendee and have a U.S. address that you can send it to, you can enter that U.S. address as your shipping address in your Member ID account and have your badges mailed there. You have until May 14, 2018 to enter the address to which you would like your badge shipped.
13. Don’t despair. Not everyone who participates in Open Registration will be able to purchase a badge. However, there are also plenty of outside events in downtown San Diego that do not require a badge, so it’s still possible to take part in some of the nerdy fun that goes on during that week!
14. Review Comic-Con’s website and their Toucan Blog for more information.  Comic-Con’s website has more information about SDCC 2018 Open Registration, and also be sure to check out the Toucan Blog for Open Registration FAQs, more info about registration codes, and tech tips.

Check out our friends The Geekiary, Friends of Comic Con, An Englishman in San Diego, Nerdophiles, and SDCC Unofficial Blog for more hints, tips, and info!

Will you be participating in San Diego Comic-Con 2018 Open Registration? Do you have any tips to add? Let us know in the comments below!