Derek’s SDCC 2019 Recap: Friday / Saturday

If you missed my pre-con / Preview Night recap, head here!

If you missed my Thursday recap, head here!

Note: Friday was a bit of a chill day, so rather than publishing a smaller piece, it’s been combined with Saturday. That said — the Star Trek Picard Museum here is definitely worth a look!

Friday

With Mondo changing their line policy yesterday, I knew that I had to be at the convention centre early if I wanted any chance to get the Metal Gear poster that I completely fell in love with when it was announced last week.

So, as I did yesterday, I went into Hall E, went up the escalator and around the building, and waited. And waited. And waited. Today’s sea of people took far longer to be let in. The moment we were headed down the escalator to gain entrance to the exhibit hall, every door seemingly opened and people that had just arrived were getting in well before those of us who arrived 90+ minutes prior. This sucks, and I wish that 50 years in they had a better way to manage the opening of the convention. That said it must be an incredible stressful process, and I can’t imagine that any way that they could do it would result in everyone being happy.

As I did yesterday, I speed-walked over to Mondo as fast as I possibly could. They ran out of tickets about five people in front of me — as I sulked my way away from the booth, there were, naturally, a bunch of people in the very first line of the day, who also somehow had several tickets for later in the day proudly displayed in their SDCC badge holder.

Lame.

I went to take a look at the Mattel booth, as that Macho Man figure is still calling my name, and it was capped as well. The show floor at this point had a more hectic than usual feel, and for whatever reason I wasn’t feeling super hot, so I decided to dip out of convention centre until the morning rush calmed down a bit.

I traversed over the skybridge to meet up with Mikaela (she was just finishing up at the apparently tiny HBO Watchmen activation). We planned to head into the Petco Interactive zone, but I thought it would be a better idea to go grab some food instead. We walked around for a bit before finding some delicious tacos (and some breakfast soda because the coffee machine was broken).

At this point I just kind of wanted to sit for a bit, so we ate slowly and worked on articles, and after awhile decided to head over a couple of blocks to the Jean-Luc Picard exhibit. This offsite over at the Michael J Wolf Fine Arts at 363 Fifth Ave, from 11-9 on Friday and Saturday, and 11-5 on Sunday. It’s basically a museum exhibit celebrating the life and career of Captain Picard, and even though I’m not super into Star Trek, I absolutely appreciated the event. You can take a look at a couple of photos from the exhibit below, and check out my full write-up right here.

Following the Picard exhibit, we headed up just a few blocks further to a short but sweet meet up for Quantic Dream. We weren’t too sure what to expect here as details were light, but there were a ton of fans in Quantic Dream-themed cosplay (mostly Connor from Detroit: Become Human). Once we were inside, we got some cool Quantic Dream swag like stickers, a lanyard, and a bracelet, and both Bryan Dechart and Amelia Rose Blair from Detroit: Become Human were there to sign posters, chat, and take photos. Mikaela definitely fangirled as she absolutely adored the game (even writing a great piece about it here), and I was very glad we went.

Next up, I actually ended up winning a spot to the Funko X SDCC booth for 1:15. This wasn’t the main Funko booth, but a special booth selling just three SDCC 50th Anniversary items, including a Toucan Pop!, a Toucan PEZ, and a Batman with an SDCC 50 shopping bag. It was the only slot for the entire convention that Mikaela or I won in any lottery, so I’m thankful to have been able to pick up these items (and to start my Pop! collection which Mikaela has been resisting for years.

We then made a quick stop on fifth to check out the Syfy drum line, which featured some cool music, and some 90’s trivia between convention goers hosted by Orlando Jones. It was a super cool time.

Once we were done here, we headed back to our hotel for some water, and to get off of our feet for a bit (and to write up an article), and then Mikaela and and I headed down to the Amazon Prime Video Experience (once again) to try to jump into the The Boys premiere. The line was long, but shaded, and we met a few interesting people from Australia and Winnipeg that made the wait go by much more quickly. We made it in, had some food and drinks, and watched the first two episodes of the upcoming series (introduced by much of the series’ cast, including Karl Urban). As you can probably expect if you’re familiar with the book at all, the show is pretty hyper violent, super vulgar, and got a lot of laughs (and groans) from the crowd. On each seat there was a cool ‘F**k Supes’ foam (middle) finger, which is definitely a cool piece of merch that I didn’t see given out at any other point. Overall the event was a blast, I can’t wait to see more of the series when it launches on 7/26. Also I got to say hey to Karl Urban, which was a pretty rad moment for sure. A huge thanks for Amazon Prime for hosting us!

One the event was over, we walked back to our hotel and promptly went to sleep.

For Saturday, I’m committed to finally getting that Macho Man Randy Savage figure (unless the line is too long and then I’m not that committed), and we’ll also be hitting up the premiere of Carnival Row in the evening!

Saturday

After a semi-late night, I woke up far less tired than I’d originally anticipated.

I didn’t have too much on the docket today, but really wanted to try to get that Macho Man doll. Instead of flooding in and waiting forever in Hall E, I decided to just wait outside for B to open up, which is much closer to Mattel’s location, and which always seems to open up before I’d ever get down the escalator.

Because of this new strategy, I didn’t get to the convention centre until about 9AM. I knew that these doors wouldn’t open until 9:30 or so (and I think everyone else did too) but that didn’t stop much of the line from groaning and complaining every few minutes that they had to wait. I get that this part of the waiting definitely stinks (especially out in this heat), but I just don’t anticipate any good way to get this many people into a building at once. That said — I wish that they’d do as they say they do, and let everyone who goes through Hall E as instructed in first.

I b-lined it to Mattel. Naturally, the line was capped, and the crowd around the capped line was so heavy that security was threatening to shut the booth right down. I hung around for a few minutes to see if things would clear up. They definitely didn’t, and within 10 minutes both the best John Hammond figure, and my precious Macho Man were sold out for the day. I then ran over to Entertainment Earth to see what the cool Kenner Darth Vader Prototype stock was looking like, and it was sold out as well.

So I gave up on that stuff, and instead went over to the Geekscape booth to find team playing hackey sack in the middle of the aisle. I joined in for a bit, and we were freaking terrible at it, but it’s absolutely these weird little moments that make SDCC super memorable.

Shortly afterwards, a signing was about to start at the booth, so I decided to get out of everyone’s way. I ran down to Mondo to check stock on a couple of the day’s drops, not that I had a ticket, but for the last hour of the day, the booth was open for purchases. I asked a couple of guys how they managed to get such early tickets, and which door they entered at as it simply feels like there are no good options. One of them offered to grab the poster that I was looking for (since it was different than anything that they were looking for, and a ticket let you buy up to one of each thing available at any given time), and I was stoked. Then, unfortunately, the poster that he was hoping to grab sold out, so he just gave me and our other line friend his ticket and left.

So… I went wild and bought three more items. I went very quickly from “Oh I haven’t spent very much money yet,” to “Oh shit I’ve spent way too much money.” But I don’t buy anything like this for most of the rest of year, so I’m not too worried about it. I ended up grabbing this year’s limited The Babadook and The Transformers: The Movie poster, along with the somehow-still-in-stock Metal Gear Solid vinyl (the poster, however, was long gone). In any case, I’m super thankful to have had this opportunity at all, so a huge thanks to those friends in line who helped me it.

I then went back to the booth, grabbed my big-ass poster tube, and then very carefully walked everything back to the hotel (new Mondo’s dangling in the wind rather than in the tube, as there was simply no good place to put everything together).

Then, it was time for BBQ. We ended up at Kansas City BBQ, which is just across the street from our hotel, and which was used for a couple of scenes in Top Gun, and has become the self proclaimed ‘Top Gun Bar’. It didn’t take long to get in, but took about an hour for our delicious meat to arrive. They warned us of this though, so it wasn’t a big deal.

Next up, we moved onto the Borderlands Museum Of Mayhem, which somehow only had about a 20 minute-long lineup. It was pretty busy inside, but it waiting in line got you some pretty rad swag, like masks, cool posters, and keychains. The are a ton of art pieces up around the museum, including a number of pieces of fan art, alternate key art for Borderlands 3, some amazing pieces made out of stained glass. There are also some huge standees of prominent Borderlands characters throughout the exhibit, and a couple of photo ops as well. You can also find some hidden codes around the area that should unlock sweet goodies in (I believe) Borderlands 3, and also a sweet gift shop covered in cool Borderlands merch. If you’re really brave, you can also have a Borderlands logo shaved into your head.

If you’re in San Diego, you can head to the museum at Sparks Gallery – 530 Sixth Ave, San Diego, CA 92101 from 12-5 on Sunday. It’s a cool experience, with a generally short wait, and some sweet swag for stopping by.

Following the Museum of Mayhem, we grabbed some Berkeley Pizza to bring back to a hungry Matt at the booth, and Mikaela went out to take cosplay photos while I hung out with the guys at the booth. Jonathan and I recorded a quick podcast segment talking about all of the in-progress Marvel announcements in Hall H (fuck yeah Blade) and soon after it was time to head out.

Side note — if you’re leaving SDCC at close, don’t expect to get anywhere quickly, as this is what it looks like, and also, this Starscream cosplay may be the best outfit I’ve seen this year:

At 7, we were back at the Prime Video Experience for the premiere of Carnival Row, a series created by Pacific Rim creator Travis Beacham, which stars Orlando Bloom and Cara Delvingne. The series is “ set in a Victorian fantasy world filled with mythological immigrant creatures whose exotic homelands were invaded by the empires of man. This growing population struggles to coexist with humans — forbidden to live, love, or fly with freedom. But even in darkness, hope lives, as a human detective, Rycroft Philostrate (Bloom), and a refugee faerie named Vignette Stonemoss (Delevingne) rekindle a dangerous affair despite an increasingly intolerant society. Vignette harbors a secret that endangers Philo’s world during his most important case yet: a string of gruesome murders threatening the uneasy peace of the Row.”

Travis himself, and a bunch of the cast, including Orlando Bloom, Cara Delevingne, Tamzin Merchant, and David Gyasi we’re present, and actually showed up dancing in weird costumes for some time before finally revealing their true personas. Take a look at a few photos from the event below!

The series looks impressive as hell, and I was beyond excited to attend the event and check out the first two episodes. Reviews on the series are embargoed for the time being, but I’ll just say that I cannot wait for August 30th so that I can see what happens next. The world of Carnival Row is beyond fascinating, and I just can’t wIt to jump into it. Again, a huge thanks to Amazon Prime for hosting us again.

Following the premiere, and with just one day left of SDCC (which both feels like it just started and like it’s been going on forever at the same time), it was then time for some much needed rest.

As Sunday is typically a smaller day at the convention, and as following the close of the show floor I’ll be busy breaking down the booth and spending one last night with my Geekscape family, this will be the final recap for SDCC this year. Look for additional coverage from the team in the coming days, and look for an SDCC wrap-up episode where Jonathan talks to booth guests (and me) about everything SDCC.

Thanks for following along! I really appreciate you coming along for the ride!