Introduction

I attended Blizzcon 2011 in Anaheim, CA last year and wanted to document my experience for several reasons. Sorry for the crazy late delay. I had this draft for months and forgot about it.

For starters, this was my first time going to Blizzcon and I had NO idea what to expect. These notes are for me to remember what to do and what not to do the next time I attend. Secondly, it might help some other first timers on the internet. I will bold the important notes.

If you see words in all caps, pretend I’m yelling those words at you. :U

Part 0: Getting Started

Blizzcon is NOT cheap. If you are traveling and/or plan to buy merchandise, prepare yourself and save money. Here’s an example of what I had to pay. It includes expenses for three nights and four days and general purchases:

• $150 per Blizzcon ticket
• $200-$300 worth of merchandise
• $90+ Travel expenses (gas for 370+ miles)
• $5 snacks per day
• $130 per night at a hotel
• $14 parking per day
• Breakfast ($5), Lunch($5-$10), and Dinner ($30 + drinks…lol) per day

Of course, you could be a budget planner and do a much better job than I did. If you have family, try to stay over with them. If you have friends that live in the area, see if you can crash on their couch. If you are attending with friends, try to split the expenses. This is especially helpful for gas and hotel bills.

Part I: The Tickets

If you plan on going to Blizzcon, you better know when the tickets go on for sale. I just happened to be lucky and accidentally stumbled upon a Blizzcon advertisement early last summer when I was looking at some game blog. It just so happened that the tickets were going to be on sale in the coming weeks, so I marked it on my calender and bookmarked the Blizzcon store ticket page.

Why do I need to mark my calendar? Well, it turns out there are hundreds of thousands (if not millions) die-hard Blizzard fans and a lot of them want to attend. I wasn’t sure how the ticket purchase process would be like, so I used good old Google to see how others experienced it. I found that tickets sold out fairly quickly, so I had to be prepared to click the purchase button as soon as the tickets go on sale.

The tickets went on sale May 25 at 7:00pm PST. It was 6:50pm and I was so anxious to get off the train from work. Once it stopped, I ran home, turned on my computer, and opened my browser to the store page. Then I waited. It seemed like forever, but I couldn’t afford to go pee, even though I knew it would take less than a minute.

I logged onto Steam to make sure my boyfriend was online and ready to purchase as well. We waited. When the clock almost struck 7:00, I hit F5 to refresh the page. Nothing changed. I refreshed again, and THERE it was! I selected two tickets to purchase and then I saw this:

I was put in a queue! I guess it would make sense to put customers in a queue if the demand is high. I was in position 1851 and it was already 2 minutes into the time when I hit the purchase button. The scary part? My boyfriend was in position 17,000 (somewhere in there) and he hit refresh within the first seconds after 7:00pm as well. I got lucky I guess.

Side note: I talked with some guests during Blizzcon and one person said he had a group of six friends do the same thing me and my boyfriend did just here. However, only two of them were able to successfully purchase.

I highly recommend that you get a group of friends to do this process with and buy as many tickets as you see fit. I thought it was silly I only bought two tickets, since there was a max of four per person. We could have brought two more friends with us, but I wasn’t thinking… about… others. :U

Trivia: The total number of attendees for Blizzcon 2011 was 26,000.

After you purchase your tickets, you are given a month to name the attendees for the tickets you just bought. Here’s what that interface looks like completed.

You are able to edit this until a certain point. In this case, I believe it was mid-June. If there are changes or complications after the hard deadline, I’m sure you can contact Blizzard customer support for help.

Lessons learned here and things to remember:

• Coordinate with multiple people when purchasing the tickets.
• Plan to be home at a comfortable time, prepared to purchase.

Part II: Finding a place to stay during the convention

If you are staying with family or friends in the area where Blizzcon will be held, that’s wonderful. You can ignore this section, though I won’t be able to tell you much about how the experience is like driving or taking public transit to the convention. If you happen to be located within walking distance, that’s great, because it’s what I did from my hotel.

The first thing Blizzard does when you purchase your tickets is send you a confirmation email. It includes a summary of your purchase and it tells you to reserve your hotel at a discounted Blizzcon rate. The email even provides you a link to the website that contains all of the hotels that are working with Blizzcon and you can even reserve on that website. It’s really nice.

Reserve a hotel room as soon as you can! The rooms are high on demand. Not only will the hotels be booked for Blizzcon, but Disland as well. The Anaheim Convention center and Disneyland are neighbors.

There are a ton of hotels near the Anaheim Convention center, so there was a variety of choices to suit my needs. I mostly wanted a cheap(er) hotel that was still within walking distance. I ended up staying at the Red Lion, which is about a 10 minute slow walk to the front door of the convention center.

Here’s a photo of the bathroom for your curious needs. The stay there was pleasant. My only problems were that the bath tub drained water slowly the first night and that the shower fan was broke. Either that or I didn’t know how to use it at all.

I may consider staying at the Sheraton next time, but that’s only because I’m lazy and the convention is right outside the front door. This is also true for the Hilton, but I hear the staff there aren’t too fond of the Blizzcon attendees. Throwing parties causes insta-aggro. The first floor lobby and general vicinity is also GIGANTIC and PACKED with people. However, it is a great spot for meeting new folks. Of course, staying closer and at a nicer place means higher prices.

Things to remember:

• Plan how many people are going and how many beds are needed at the hotel.
• Calculate the rate per person and see if it is reasonable.

Part III: Idle period and before the convention

By this time, it is still summer. You bought your tickets and you have a place to stay. What else can you do?

Well, you have some very important things to do and remember:

1. Print out your tickets once they are available.
2. Confirm with your hotel your reservations when the convention date is coming around the corner.
3. Plan what you have to pack.
4. Plan travel.

Part IV: Packing

As per usual, pack enough clothes for four days and any other toiletry hotels would not provide.

Here is a list of absolute must brings. It would be very stupid to not.

• Comfortable shoes: Forget fashionable shoes. You’re going to a game convention. No one is going to give a karp about your shoes. You will be standing all day. Standing mostly in lines all day. You better bring good shoes. Your feet/back/knees will hate you if you don’t.
• Water bottle
• Camera
• Light jacket: it gets a bit chilly inside sometimes because the convention is kept cool.
• Have something to do in line: You can chit-chat with your friend or the next person over is sometimes nice. If you are alone because you broke away from your group for a couple of events or if the people around you are jerks/boogery 9 year olds, bring a book or something else self-entertaining.

Here is a list of things I didn’t think to bring at first and a list of things I wish I brought. I won’t tell you which is which. :O

• Hand sanitizer
• 1 black and 1 silver sharpie (for signatures)
• Something for people to sign. Ex: an art book, game case, photo, meme, poster et cetera. You will have all sorts of chances to meet famous and well known people, gamers, casters, artists, developers, and actors/actresses.

Part V: Travel

I had to travel 370+ miles (from basically San Jose to Anaheim). We had to drive south, so we planned to take work off Thursday to travel since the convention started Friday. We made a mistake and left home at noon instead of 8:00am or 9:00am and hit Los Angeles traffic. It was awful. We basically added another hour or two on our driving schedule.

Note: If you don’t plan to arrive before the first day of BlizzCon, do know that you can pick up your badge and goodie bag the day before. This will save you the time in the morning so you don’t have to wait in line for your badge when the doors open. This year, Hall E was open from 4:00-10:00pm for badge pickup.

We were able to stand in line at the convention around 8:00pm (the night before) for our badge. The line was long, by the way, and will probably always be long. I think we stood in it for 40 minutes, just to get our badge. We wanted to get our badge before checking in at the hotel too (because we didn’t want to miss the opportunity), so we had to pay $12 parking in the nearby lot. It was lame. At least there was plenty of parking.

Lessons learned here:

• Plan to drive around traffic hours.
• Park at the hotel.
• Walk to convention center.

Part VI: The Goodie Bag

Other than Blizzard swag found in the goodie bag, you will get all sorts of colorful pieces of papers. They are brochures for vendors, coupons, raffle tickets, marketing stuff for Blizzard, and so on.

LOOK AT THEM. The papers.

The bag will contain something called Quests. I’m sure you’re familiar with the term. These quests basically have you do specific things during the convention, such as going from booth to booth, collecting items, and taking your photo next to various things.

Multiple vendors had their own little quests with their own products as prizes.

There is also one big quest chain for Blizzcon. In the end, you are guaranteed a prize. A majority of people win either or Horde or Alliance patch, but if you are one of the lucky few, you could win a set of books and board games.

I, unfortunately, thought it would be a good idea to start the quest chain after I walked around a bit and saw some things before noon. By a bit, I mean a couple hours. And by walking around, I mean waiting in line at the loot elemental! Everyone gets 60 seconds to grab and shove little pieces of paper into a little box. PRO TIP: You are NOT guaranteed a prize! You win by either getting a colored slip (which isn’t always in there), or if one of your white tickets has a special marking on it. The number of tickets you manage to grab means nothing! The prizes are also only pets for WoW, which I don’t even play anymore. Don’t do the loot elemental if there is more than 20 people. You will have a better chance if you are there REALLY early (10min after the door opens) or at night after most people have gone.

Anyways, by the time we got to the quest’s starting booth (around 1:00pm), they had run out of maps for the day. Ran out! I couldn’t even start the quest line! How could they underestimate the number of people who would do the quest? Was it less than 5,000? They also ran out the next day when the doors opened. I was a very sad panda.

Maybe they wanted to limit the number of people running around trying to complete something just so they could get a prize.

Other than that quest, here are some other mini games that came in the bag:

• Every bag had a jumbo pin with some Blizzard art on it. Each pin had a 5-digit number. There are a total of three pins with the same number in the group of Blizzcon attendees. You must find the other two people with the same number to claim your prize. I believe the prize was a graphics card. Not many people got this! There was a website where you entered your number into a database and you left your phone number in case there were 3-matches. The Blizzcon forum also had a thread going, but that’s hard to search through.
• There was a metal key attached to a piece of paper. You needed to bring it to a chest on the show floor at a kiosk to see if you can open it. The line was long (around 20 minutes wait), and I lost. I believe all false keys look the same, so if you and your friends have the same looking key, don’t even try.
• There were raffle tickets. I needed to turn them in to enter a drawing. However, here was this year’s kicker: the main prize drawing for the beast computer was during the closing ceremony.

Attendees love prizes. I love prizes. Free stuff is awesome.

Lessons learned here:

• Look carefully at all of the papers. Try to get as many free stuff as you can.
• Start the main quest early. Finish early so you can forget about it.

Part V: The Blizzcon Schedule

This was actually the hardest part of Blizzcon: trying to schedule everything I wanted to see. You will NOT be able to attend all events at Blizzcon. Schedules for events and talks will conflict and a person simply can’t be in two locations at once.

Therefore, I recommend you plan your schedule before event. By planning, I do not mean:

Look at the schedule and determine which things look the most interesting.

I mean the following:

Look at the schedule and determine what deserves more of your time and commit to it.

I wasn’t smart and didn’t commit to a fixed schedule (or even a number of talks) and had a terrible time trying to figure out what to do on the spot. I ended up just walking around the first day… going with the flow. The second day I spent mostly on myself seeing things that truly interested me.

The schedule is posted on the official Blizzcon website beforehand. There was even an iPod/iPhone app that helped you create your schedule.

I ended up going separate ways from my boyfriend on several occasions because he wanted to play Heart of the Swarm when I wanted to see live demonstrations from some artists and learn about the alpha development stages of the original Starcraft.

I must say that the talks given by the developers and the artists were more interesting, but that’s just me. I figured that I could always see the games later and demo after the fact, but I won’t have the same chance to experience what I did with these folks. They are a creative, funny, and amazingly talented group of people.

I did learn some things I about the early stages of Starcraft I and II, especially about the zerg creep! In the early stages, developers made the creep the generic magenta color, very splotchy, because they were… developers. There were some funny slides of it. In early SC2, creep used to be more lively (animated) and was actually really reflective at one point. Developers and testers thought that too much was happening on the screen and took away MOST of the reflective properties, but it is still there. And as for the newest changes, creep will crawl up on foreign buildings so as to engulf it. Take that, shiny nexus!

Lessons learned here:

• Schedule ahead of time.
• Attend talks and do something you like and for yourself. (Screw your friends! :B)

Part VI: The Floor

I wasn’t going to talk about this initially, but I figured what the heck.

Look around you when you are on the Blizzcon floor.

There’s amazing artwork and amazing people.

Everyone around you is a feller nerd somehow. You have at least one thing in common and that is you are a Blizzard fan. If you aren’t, then you are either family, friends, or a significant other of someone who is.

That greasy haired guy over there is actually a grand masters level Terran player.

That airhead brunette standing next to you in line for time with Day[9] doesn’t know who he is? Well, she’s the girlfriend of guild leader “Yo Mama’s Got Swag”. (I made that guild up, but that girl was real. Wanted to slap her silly. Just kidding! Maybe. Time with Day[9] also sounds dirty. Sorry, but it rhymed and I couldn’t force myself to delete it.)

That couple who wanted to take photos with the Kerrigan and Witch Doctor models instead of Husky before he leaves to cast in 2 minutes?? They are actually… they are just idiots! AH, I wanted to slap them too!

What was I getting with this?

There are people who stand in line for the sake of standing in line! It’s annoying and people don’t bother to ask for directions or ask what a line is for. Do not be afraid to ask what a line is for! Folks are generally nice and are more than happy to tell you. I didn’t meet any trolls, though I can’t promise there aren’t any.

(Warning: Inserting general statement). I think gamers tend to look out for one another in the real world. People go to events like Blizzcon to have a good time, not to ruin people’s lives. Hey, standing in the wrong line could be devastating!

Besides annoying people, there’s art and kiosk with cool stuff to do that you might’ve missed before because they didn’t look interesting.

Part VI: Side notes that belong no where

Pee pee time:

• Use the bathroom before the closing ceremony. Everyone is jammed in a small place with only a couple of bathrooms around. They get cramped.
• I generally had no problem with the ladies bathroom. It was always empty on the main floor. Can’t say the same for the guys though…

Food:

• We didn’t plan to purchase a lot of snacks and food before we arrived at Blizzcon, so we went to grocery stores after Blizzcon each night. I think down there it’s called Albertson’s? At any rate, they close at some inconvenient time, usually 5 minutes after we manage to finally arrive. Be sure to make it on time!
• We didn’t bring eating utensils for breakfast/lunch, so bring spoons and forks and knives as you see fit!
• Hotel fridges are small! If you plan on purchasing perishable foods, remember that it means less room for beer. I’ll leave it at that…

Merchandise stores:

• Avoid them if you can. If you really really want to purchase some gear or merchandise, do it online either before or after Blizzcon. The Blizzcon store will be open for attendees for a couple days before the actual show begins so you can avoid the hassle and long lines.
• I actually had a terrible time with the Blizzcon store because I received the wrong posters and the lady didn’t give me my marine figurines. I had to wait in the customer service line for 40 minutes just to correct their mistakes. It was utter bullshit. TIP: If you do purchase from a merchandise store, double check your order before you leave the counter! Do NOT feel rushed.
• The stores usually have a form you fill out for your order, so don’t think you need to memorize what you need to order once you do reach the front.
• The Jinx line was maybe 40 minutes and the Blizzard store line was probably 30.

Part VII: Personal Highlight

The best experience at Blizzcon 2011 for me was the GSL finals. It was MMA versus Mvp and there was between 7,000-10,000 people watching them play.

The energy was amazing.

There was so much tension in the room, everybody could feel it. People cheered, jeered, and probably cried. The game itself was great to watch. I could practically hear people biting their lips because there were some ridiculously awesome moments.

During one of the GSL Finals nights, one of the kiosks was still open next to the game stage: Lego! You were able to start with a base piece and build a lego structure as small or as big as you like. The only rule was that you had to be able to take it out. There were maybe four or five huge bins just full of lego pieces.

Some folks made large master pieces. It was funny because most of the people around the bins were 30+ year olds, definitely there to hog pieces for their kids. I left with this wee little cave for Thrall (who came with the goodie bag).

Conclusion

Overall, I had a great time but would have enjoyed it even more if we had more company. Next time, we will go with a group of friends and plan fun hangouts afterwards too.

If you don’t already know Blizzcon 2012 is canceled this year in light of the 2012 Battle.net World Championships. Blizzard is in the middle of developing Diablo III and Heart of the Swarm, so they have their arms full. Everyone likes a solid game, right?

Yes, I’m bummed out, but not totally upset because I trust Blizzard wouldn’t cancel one of their biggest events without good reasoning.

If you have any questions or have input, I can answer them below. Thanks for reading!