San Diego Comic Con makes another registration change - a lottery to purchase passes!

Things just got a lot more complicated for convention goers looking to attend San Diego Comic Con this year. A few weeks ago I reported how all weekend passes were gone for 2014. Attendees would only be able to purchase single day passes for the weekend and would have to buy a pass for every day to be eligible to attend the "preview night". Well it seems that this was not the only change for 2014. The company in charge has decided to implement an "Epic Waiting Room" which is being billed as a way to level out the field of those looking to buy passes for the weekend. In the end the registration becomes a lottery as to whether or not you get to purchase a ticket.

Here is the information straight from San Diego Comic Con.

"We would first like to thank everyone for your patience while we conduct a lot of tests on the new registration system. We know how frustrating purchasing a badge for Comic-Con can be and while the sheer number of people who would like to attend far outnumber the badges available, we really do hope the new system will make the process less aggravating.

We have heard suggestions from many of you, as far ranging as utilizing a fee-heavy corporate ticket broker to returning to the old days of mailing in an order form. While all of the options considered had their own pros and cons, one thing was certain, the everyone-push-a-button-all-at-the-same-time model has been extremely problematic. 

Working closely with the team at EPIC Registration, Comic-Con has decided to introduce a randomized waiting room. This decision was based on the number of suggestions we received and countless hours trying to find the fairest way to implement changes to what has been a problem plagued process. During 2014 badge preregistration, prospective attendees will be given a time frame in which they can log in to the EPIC waiting room prior to the badge sale. Once the badge sale begins, everyone who is inside the waiting room will be randomly assigned to a registration session. Your assigned registration session is not tied to the time you entered the waiting room. There is no advantage in arriving early.

Our hope in creating a randomized system is to alleviate the rush to purchase badges, which inevitably causes technical issues or prevents attendees from purchasing badges at all. 

Again, thank you for your patience and for sticking with us! We are still in the process of load testing the system and preregistration for eligible attendees will not occur this weekend, February 1. Keep a close eye on this blog for additional tips and details in the following days.

To see if you are eligible to participate in badge preregistration, please click here to visit our 2014 Preregistration page. "

I know that they think this is leveling the playing field of purchasing tickets but this is beyond ridiculous. So now you not only have to buy single day passes for the weekend (if you can get them) but now you have to sit in a waiting room hoping that your name is picked to buy passes. There will certainly be strong backlash to this decision from the convention attendees. What do you think about the newest change to San Diego Comic Con?

Source: Comic-Con.org