Arrived by trolley at the Convention Center a little after 5 PM for Preview Night to find truly monumental lines of people outside the building. Which startled me because I recall the last Preview Night I went to, a couple years ago, I went straight into the building and fairly quickly got through the process of getting my badge.
So, I went with others I had been on the trolley with to find the end of the line, which took some doing, as the lines were very confusing; they just seemed to be going all over the place. Eventually a security person was found who was saying "End of the line here! End of the line here!"
And I proceeded to shuffle forward a few feet every three or four minutes. Until a little after 6 PM, when all of a sudden the line started moving continuously forward at quite a brisk pace. After that it was a matter of just a few minutes to get my badge and then be in the exhibit area to start looking around.
As I've been typing this up, it's occurred to me what the change in policy for Preview Night between 2006 and 2008 must have been. In 2006 if you got your badge before 6 PM, you then had to wait in the lobby areas of the exhibit area until 6 PM to get in the actual exhibit area. (As I recall, the doors were actually opened at least 10 minutes late.) Which meant the lobby areas got very, very crowded. I'm thinking that between Convention Center management and Comic-Con management it must have decided that was unacceptable and Preview Night procedures were thus changed to start badge processing and open the exhibit area all at the same time, thus allowing a smooth flow of people into the exhibit area.
The highlight of the evening was purchasing the two books that have been produced by the creator of the web-based comic Octopus Pie, Meredith Gran, and getting a sketch and signature in each of them done right there and then by the artist herself! Very nice.
Here are my Preview Night photos.
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