Derek’s SDCC 2019 Recap: Pre-Con / Preview Night!
Tuesday
I can’t believe it’s already SDCC week.
At times, it feels like it was just yesterday that I was Lime-ing around San Diego with Matt Kelly, eating Rockin’ Baha with the Geekscape crew (that sweet, sweet mango salsa), being insanely impressed with offsides like Purge City or Mr. Mercedes, or running into the likes of Xavier Woods and Becky Lynch during Rocket League’s fantastic third birthday party.
Other times, it’s crazy to think just how long it’s been, and how much Geekscape has changed over the past year. The Geekscape Games podcast was a huge part of my life, and it ended very suddenly last Fall, leaving me in a spot where I just didn’t know what to do next. After a bit of a break and some time to recuperate (and figure out how to both live without my longtime co-hosts apply what I’d learned over Geekscape Games’ four year run to something else), in May I finally launched a brand new show called Xbox Game Passengers, which has myself and a guest discussing a single randomly-selected game on Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass service. As of this writing we’re six episodes in (with a couple of E3 specials for good measure), and we’ve played some absolute gems like What Remains Of Edith Finch (which certified non-gamer Matt Kelly actually joined me for), along with a few titles that left something to be desired, like MotoGP17. Xbox Game Passengers has been a challenging and incredibly rewarding experience so far, and I can’t wait to see where it brings me a year from now.
Today, Geekscape also launched a brand new, redesigned website. Our last redesign was about four years ago, and we (and the web itself) has changed a lot since then. We’ve shifted our focus from things like news, to original content like podcasts, and this new design puts a much bigger emphasis on the shows that we’re doing, and its far simpler layout helps browsers see what’s new on the site much, much more easily. It brings with it some changes that I’d been hoping for for some time (higher resolution featured images, yes!), and I think that there’s absolutely no better time for a Geekscape reboot, than when some of the team is together in San Diego. Please, take a look around the site (and forgive some of the odd looking featured images for now, I’ll fix them when I can), and let us know what you think!
When the alarm rang this morning at 1:45AM, I was incredibly sleepy, rather grumpy, but also so excited. Mikaela, who you may have heard on Geekscape Games or Xbox Game Passengers, who handles our @GeekscapeForever Instagram page (where you’ll find all sorts of sick cosplay photos from the different events and conventions that we’ve visited), who has a casual column where she, as a semi-novice gamer, tackles game reviews from her own perspective, and who is my long time fiancé, headed to San Diego with me for the very first time. She’s super excited, nervous, and overwhelmed all at the same time, and I can’t wait for her to see and understand just what keeps me coming back to relive this insanely exhausting experience each and every year. I’m really excited to see what kind of experiences she has while here with me.
So we made our way to the airport parking (some weird valet style thing that didn’t seem to have any employees around so I really hope we still have a car when we get back), took a shuttle to the terminal itself, and prepared ourselves for the long 25 minute flight to Seattle where we would have a couple of hours of layover before our final flight to San Diego. Thankfully, our bags were checked so we didn’t have to worry about them at all, and so during our layover time we grabbed some snacks and took some time to check out the new Geekscape.
While waiting for our connecting flight, Jonathan published a yearly pre-SDCC podcast, this year a one-on-one with Matt Kelly. These episodes are always a favourite of mine to listen to, as everyone on them is typically super comfortable with each other, and it ends up just being an hour or so of ridiculous jokes. This year is no exception — the episode is hilarious, and… it feels like the pair barely talked about the actual convention. Mikaela and I listened to the show on the plane, and absolutely got a few looks as we burst out laughing multiple times over the course of the episode.
We landed, barely waited for luggage, and grabbed a Lyft from Oscar, whose car was filled with candy and bubble gum. Like every cup holder, every nook and cranny of every door was filled with candy. We didn’t eat any, but I appreciated it.
Finally, it was time to reunite. Somehow, Mikaela, John, Matt, and I all arrived at the Grand Hyatt within about 10 minutes of each other. We exchanged some quick hellos, and before long it was time to head to the convention centre to grab our badges for the week, and to get ready to build the booth.
The first step in getting ready… was to get some delicious food in us. My favourite restaurant (of the few that I’ve actually been to) in San Diego is called Rockin’ Baha. It’s a seafood / Mexican joint that has a phenomenal salsa bar with a ton of different varieties, but their mango salsa is simply amazing. I could eat the stuff forever. Today, I also had queso for apparently the first time in my life, and it might be a new favourite.
Once we ate, we finally made it inside the expo hall in order to assemble our booth. This is my seventh time to SDCC, and it never gets old walking around the floor early and seeing all of the intricate booths being set up. It’s amazing to see that work that is put in both inside of the convention centre, and the whole Gaslamp District around it, just for this five day period. It’s essentially unfathomable to imagine just how much money these studios and production companies are spending to put on these insane events just for a few days. It’s amazing, and I appreciate it so much, but I definitely don’t understand it.
Building the booth constitutes of bringing a ton of items for actually building the booth, and crap that Jonathan doesn’t want anymore (giveaways woo!) to our designated are (booth #3919), building our backdrop and table, organizing t-shirts, and then walking around and looking at all of the cool stuff that nobody else will see until late the next day. It’s warm as hell in there, as it doesn’t seem like the air conditioning is actually turned on until the next day, but it’s definitely worth it. Also, I typically get first pick of the crap that Jonathan doesn’t want, and I’ve definitely scored some sweet merch over the years by sorting through these boxes and boxes or refuse.
It was getting slightly late, and I was getting pretty tired (as I was up at 1AM the night before), but I still wanted to hit up the FYE Pop-Up shop over at Horton Plaza. Matt, myself, and the hosts of the Fright School podcast (who we met up with slightly before) walked over to check out the store. You can check out some photos of what the store has on offer right here, but in short, the place is just chock-full of mostly inexpensive collectibles that are just so freaking cool. The shop is open through X, but a lot of the stuff goes really quickly, so if you’re in the area, I’d recommend heading their ASAP. I asked about sizes on a couple of shirts, and was basically told that whatever was out was what they had, so there were a couple of things that I could didn’t get, but I definitely bought an amazing Stranger Things shirt, as well as the soundtrack to season three… on cassette. I will never be able to play this, but it’s going to look super cool next to my New Coke.
Before heading back to the hotel, we stopped at a neat barcade called Coin-Op GameRoom that I’d somehow missed for the past seven years. They had a good soundtrack, neat games, decent food, and were playing Willow, old WCW wrestling, Bob Ross, and The Karate Kid, all at the same time. It was a nice, chill way to end the night.
We stopped at Ralph’s on the way back to the hotel to grab some water and snacks for the week ahead (mostly coconut water, which I discovered last year, and which saved me from feeling terrible and dehydrated most days), and then stumbled our way back to the hotel to turn in for the night.
Next up is Preview Night (and day, as Mikaela and I will be checking out Amazon Prime’s incredible sounding offsite activation in the early afternoon), and while as I’m prepared as I can be, it’s hard to ever feel ready for an event like this!
Wednesday
I was really happy to have had a good night’s sleep.
Much to Mikaela’s dismay, people in the hotel room began to stir as early as 5AM. I was up and showered shortly after 7, and as nothing has really started yet, had a bit of a chill morning. Mikaela slept in a bit, and I worked on some articles in the chill, air conditioned room.
After relaxing in the hotel room for awhile, Matt, Mikaela, and I decided to walk around the Gaslamp to check out some of the in-progress activations. NBC has a fantastic presence with Superstore (a show that I’d not actually heard of before) taking over the lobby of the Hard Rock Hotel, The Good Place taking over Mary Jane’s restaurant (and turning it into the Interdimensional Hole Of Pancakes), among with a neat little Seinfeld activation that has you doing trivia in exchange for a coin that you can use in a themed vending machine filled with Seinfeld merch (including Junior Mints), along with a fresh build of the precinct from Brooklyn 99.
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment also had some neat in-progress activations, including a piece of Rhyme City (and a huge Pikachu) for Detective Pikachu, and a miniature version of Chilladelphia for Shazam.
We also took out some Bird scooters briefly so that we could get around more quickly. It’s definitely for the best, but the scooters are much more limited this year in just where they can go, and if you head into an area that you shouldn’t be in, the scooter loses all power and is manual only. I also accidentally added $20USD to my Bird account… so it ended up being a pretty expensive ride. Mikaela did ride as well, however, and was totally terrified, so maybe it’s still worth it.
At noon, Mikaela and I checked out the Amazon Prime Experience, which hosts activations for upcoming Amazon Prime series The Boys, Carnival Row, and season four of The Expanse. I’ve posted some photos taken at the offsite below, and look for a full article with video of the three activations on Geekscape shortly!
The Amazon Prime Experience is located at MLK and 1st, and is one of the coolest offsite activations that I’ve been to. There are always a number of incredible offsite events, but these three activations feel like neat, mature, interactive theatre, and it’d be impossible not to have a huge smile on your face the entire time you’re taking part. The area itself is huge (60,000 square feet, actually), and the ‘Tower’ area in the centre shows some cool clips from the upcoming series, and also features a number of different performances throughout the day. While we were eating some lunch (some Carl’s Jr. provided by Amazon, which we were very thankful for), someone came by and asked if we’d ever been wronged by a Supe. A few minutes later, essentially an anti-supe support group started, with a number of group members describing how they’d been wronged, from things as simple as refusing an autograph to a child, to giving their mother herpes. It was super interesting. In any case, the offsite is open from 9-5 Thursday through Sunday, and the content inside is well worth the wait.
Following the Prime Video experience, we took some time to head back to FYE (as Mikaela hadn’t seen it yet), and, naturally, ended up grabbing two additional Stranger Things shirts, and shortly afterwards it was actually time to split up. Mikaela was headed inside of the convention centre (she had some Mondos to score, and was also going to try to hit up Entertainment Earth for that sweet Macho Man / Slim Jim exclusive figure), while I was set to preview the Nintendo lounge at the Marriot.
Oddly enough, this was actually my first time at the Nintendo lounge. It’s almost always present in the Marriot, but I’ve always figured that it’s not really worth standing in line for, as I was already going to buy all of the games that they were showing off. This year, with the first full Pokémon game for Switch, and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 on offer, it would have been tough to skip out on this.
Once I went inside, I immediately regretted not taking the time in year’s past. Within minutes I was playing a demo for freaking Pokémon Sword and Shield, and though it’s been years since I’ve really played Pokémon, I immediately felt at home with the game, and I immediately fell in love with it. This Switch reimagining felt absolutely fresh, and I simply cannot wait to get my hands on more of this game. As far as I know, this was the same demo shown off at E3, and had your character working their way through a water gym, and showed off both the new Dynamax functionality, as well as a myriad of new Pokémon.
I also played a (again, E3) demo of Luigi’s Mansion 3, and it mostly made me wonder how the hell I missed out on Luigi’s Mansion 2. The puzzle-y levels were a ton of fun, the vacuum mechanics felt far better than I remember them being, and the game just felt completely different from anything else that I’ve played as of late. This is another game that wasn’t really on my radar at all, but will now be a purchase on day one. It’s just so much freaking fun.
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening demo really showed off the game’s unique new art style, which often has a sort of tilt-shift look. Around the demo stations, there were also some super-cute miniatures that it was just impossible not to take pictures of. Link’s Awakening looks like an impressive remake, and as I was just three years old when Link’s Awakening came out (though I did play it later), I really don’t remember it that well.
The lounge also featured a few cool photo-ops (including Luigi’s Mansion and Pokemon), and was also showing off some sick looking Target Exclusive Mario Kart Hot Wheels, and also a sweet (literally) Nintendo X Sugarfina booth, which featured a bunch of different Nintendo themed, high end and totally freaking delicious candies. I had seen Sugarfina stores in some local malls before, but hadn’t tasted the stuff… and I’m pretty much hooked already and I can’t wait to have more and it’s Nintendo themed so it’s even better.
Once I’d played everything that the Nintendo booth had to offer, I sauntered over to the convention centre. Preview night runs from 6-9 PM, and it was sometime after 7 at this point, so I knew that I didn’t have all that much time to walk around. I walked over to Mondo at 435, where she had been hovering around the ‘capped’ line that seemingly capped before the show even opened (damn exhibitors). She was told over and over that the line wouldn’t re-open, but after standing around the line (because she wasn’t allowed in it) for well over two hours, the line opened back up, and somehow the Batman screenprint that Mikaela was stoked for, and the Jaws tiki mug that Matt wanted were still in stock.
She had made a not-line friend, and there were a couple of other things that I wanted to check out on the floor, so I left her with intentions of returning soon (I didn’t).
I wandered over to Entertainment Earth, as I thought that they were set to carry both the WWE Macho Man Randy Savage / Slim Jim exclusive, along with the Silver/Gold Mario Kart 8 statues. It turns out they had neither (and the line was capped anyways), so I then went over to Mattel which actually had both, not that it did me any good, as their line was capped as well and Macho Man was already sold out for the day.
I made a quick stop at the TNT Snowpiercer booth to receive one of the coolest pieces of swag announced so far this year, which is a protein bar made with cricket protein which totally makes sense based on the source material. I ended up with a couple of the bars, and absolutely plan to eat one, and plan to keep one forever.
Matt then sent me a message that WWE superstar Drake Maverick just walked by the booth, and so instead of going back to Mikaela, I just kind of searched around for WWE superstar Drake Maverick. He and superstar R-Truth have the absolute most entertaining storylines in WWE right now, and I just wanted to find him to thank him for the laughs. I never did, but you bet I looked.
The show floor closed, and Matt, Mikaela, Jon, and I made our annual trip to Lolita’s Mexican Restaurant. The line was long, the restaurant was too warm, and Matt’s entire order was wrong, but it was still a good time.
Naturally, we took Bird scooters back to the hotel. This was partially because we didn’t want to walk anymore, but also because they’re super fun!
That’s it for Preview Night! Tomorrow will mark the first full day of the convention. I’m most excited to see the WWE / Mattel panel in the morning (and fully believe that the 24/7 championship will change hands during this event), and also the offsite event for upcoming series Pennyworth.
Thanks for reading this far, and I hope you’ll check out all our other coverage, follow us on Instagram, and come back tomorrow to read my Thursday recap!
