San Diego Comic Con: A Haven For Nerds!

Get up close and personal with your idols!

The convention is known for giving audiences a chance to be in the same room with some of the world’s biggest and smallest stars and idols (Will Smith, Jennifer Lawrence Halle Berry, and various voice actors are only a few that made appearances at this year’s convention), but there are also panels available with the intention to teach audiences about what goes on behind the scenes in the media, tips for breaking into the business and lessons on how to improve your work for further development.

Learn about what you’re interested in!

The convention is jam-packed with panels to engage large audiences that range in objectives. Some provide audiences with the opportunity to learn more about something they love, others give inside tips about breaking into the industry and what to expect, others give sneak peeks to upcoming movies, shows, and episodes, and others allow for open discussion. While graphic novel and movie lovers will love the sneak peeks of upcoming superhero movies, anime and manga fans can appreciate the theater at SDCC specifically dedicated to showing popular and current anime shows all day, and all the booths dedicated to anime and manga merchandise.

Vintage merchandise fills the exhibition hall

SDCC always has tons of merchandise on display and is an excellent arena to gain rare collectibles, from toys to playing cards to autographs to costume pieces. Often times, prices on merchandise are cheaper at SDCC than one can find online, and there are also many SDCC exclusives that can only be bought at the convention that year. With this in mind, hundreds of people crowd the exhibit hall on the first day of SDCC annually in hopes of getting their hands on highly sought-after items that would be hard to find anywhere else.

Fans of every sort can buy figurines, hard-to-find books, manga, anime movies, magazines, art pieces, body pillows, and much more in the exhibit hall of the convention. There are even booths that sell the original cell animation sheets from popular Studio Ghibli movies, though they don’t come cheap (one cell sheet of the original Kiki’s Delivery Service ran for $3,000 this year). There are also booths that are ran by designers and artists that cater to some lolita and Harajuku culture such as Sanrio, TokiDoki, and So So Happy.

Anyone Can Cosplay!

Another aspect of SDCC that attendees can look forward to are all the amazing cosplayers walking around as their favorite characters that would be happy to take pictures with them. Both professional cosplayers (such as Yaya Han) and casual cosplayers walk around the convention regularly, and pose for pictures if they’re not in a hurry. There are even panels and booths dedicated to teaching people about the ins and outs of cosplay and providing them with cosplay materials if they want to start cosplaying or costume designing as well. An event called Masquerade is held annually at SDCC where cosplayers and costume designers parade their costumes on stage and perform for a large audience in the evening. It’s free to sign up to be apart of, and free to attend.