Will anyone get to go to SDCC 2011?

Monday, November 22nd. Strike two for the San Diego Comic-con's online registration process.

Today marked the second attempt for the organization to open registration for the 2011 show and it was the second time the absolute crush of nerds logging in immediately melted the servers to a pile of mush.

The message should now be ringing loud and clear to Comic-con International...you are in over your head. Both for booking hotel rooms for the event and now simply selling tickets to get in. Time to stop messing with non-profit, part time services or second rate Information Technology vendors...you guys need to start calling on the services of the big league ticket/event vendors such as oh, say, Ticketmaster.

Sucks to go there, we know, but this is the reality of show now. Start dealing with it, step up your game and stop ‘F’ing with the con’s exhibitors, pros and attendees.

Toys-R-Us 2010 Black Friday Plans

'Tis the season to be discounting!

All the Black Friday circular ads for the major retailers are leaking out onto shopper websites all over the 'net. TRU's BF ad leaked overnight and reveals a bold and aggressive new plan of attack for the last giant toy store in the world. In a first for just about any retailer, Toys-R-Us will open its doors to the masses on Thanksgiving night at 10pm.

While every year it seems more retailers are opening earlier the day after Thanksgiving than the year before, a few at midnight, several now at 3 and 4am this year, TRU breaks tradition and will be open for a limited time until 1am, then reopen at 5am Friday.

Not exactly a fun weekend of the year to be working inside any retailer. If you have ever seen firsthand how that Black Friday shopping crowd tears apart the aisles of any store, you then have to realize how long it would take to clean the place back up, re-stock and be ready to open fresh again in just a few hours. I doubt any of those TRU managers will even leave the stores between 1am and 5am.

The deals in TRU's Black Friday ad are very good this year. Check out the scans here!

While the majority of these deals are a draw for the average Holiday toy shopper, there are several great deals for the toy collector as well that include:
Transformers Voyager or Power Bots series $9.99. Reg is $24.99 at TRU
Transformer, Iron Man & GI Joe action figures half off reg retail.
Last year's GI Joe giant PITT vehicle will be only $49.99 or half off.

We've seen the Target BF ad and now TRU's. So far TRU has the best overall toy deals by a mile. Wal-Mart's ad will likely leak by next week and you can bet the team at Amazon.com is happily taking notes on all these ads and will be setting up their own deals to match much of the competition over the course of those few days.

Next to the post Holiday clearance, this is the best time of the year get out and spend money like you actually have it!

SDCC site crashes on launch of 2011 ticket sale date

We all know the organization behind SDCC and their partner Travel Planners absolutely suck when it comes to IT planning for booking hotels online for the massive event every year but on November 1st, the anticipated and dreaded on sale date of remaining passes to next year's con, SDCC's site crashed close to the hour reckoning but soon rebounded.

Once we had seen the 2011 Four Day ticket package that includes Preview Night had sold out during the 2010 show, we knew this date would ring in a new era of insanity for anyone wishing to attend the spectacle. Attendees had to sweat out the mess that is Hotel Booking hell every Spring, now begins the yearly mad crush for those faithful dying to purchases access.

As we post this news roughly 30 minutes into the on sale hour and the site finally shows up, we can already see in the site’s ticket availability meter that nearly one quarter of the 4 day passes are already sold. That measurement may even be inaccurate as the crush of users force the site to chug along.

We are now talking about a new era of SDCC pass purchasing akin to trying to nab tickets to a mega-star rock concert via Ticket Master.

Any poor SDCC fanboy or girl who forgot to set this date up on their calendar will be crying in their comic longboxes.

Guess this confirms I need to get my 2012 SDCC passes while attending the 2011 show next summer.

UPDATED: SDCC shuts off 2011 event ticket sales roughly 90 minutes after the sale began. Site apparently unable to hold up against the onslaught of pass seekers. New message posted on the site confirms ticket sales will resume on November 8th. That is, if the organization can enhance the site in seven days so it is able to function properly with that kind of traffic load.

Although it looks like 4 Day and Single Day passes for the con will still be available, I would doubt they have a good picture of how many will be avaialble at this time. Stay tuned!