Mikaela’s Journey to SDCC 2019: Part II

Wednesday morning was scheduled (for me) to be a sweet sweet day of sleeping in, and I guess if you compare me to everyone else in the room technically I did get to sleep in… until 6:15 AM!!?!

Grump-kaela was none too impressed about the early hour, but still happy to have a relaxed lounging morning, with time for hair and makeup and listening to the new Audible Original A Trick of Light created by Stan Lee.

I will be attending the A Trick of Light activation Thursday, and a round table press discussion on Saturday, so don’t worry you’ll be filled in on all the deets about that one in the near future! But I’ll tell you now from the wee bit I’ve listened to, it’s gonna be interesting A.F. !

Just as Matt, Derek, and I finally decided to leave the sweet sweet comfort of our cold hotel room, Jon and Gui showed back up! (Both were gone by the time I opened my eyes at the late hour of 6:15!) Gui discovered you could actually open our hotel room window way way up on the 28th floor, and figured he could probably catch a bird from there. However his fear of seagulls was quickly made apparent as one swooped by and he slammed the window shut. This seagull was relentless though. The bird literally perched directly on our window sill and stared us down. I wanted to open the window and feed it… everyone else wisely protested, and Gui guarded the window with his life. It was pretty entertaining though!

Shortly after Matt, Derek and I ventured out and I decided to put my brave pants on and face a newly discovered fear of breaking my face via electric scooter.

Last year Derek raved about getting to scoot around all over the place with his buddy Matt. Last night Derek tried to get me to ride one of them and I quickly realized I did not trust my coordination enough to not die, and opted instead to pathetically half jog beside him as he scooted to the grocery store.

With much support and encouragement I managed to hop on my first scooter ride! And it was equal parts terrifying and fun. Basically as soon as I got on I turned into a frozen terrified statue, but managed to not fall off, so… win 🤷‍♀️

We got to wander around and see a bunch of the activations in their final stages of set up, and I’m blown away by the amount of presence here. I’m not the best at references, but so many things that even I am aware of are here! From Seinfeld, The Good Place, Superstore, Brooklyn Nine Nine, South Park and on and on!

Around lunch time Derek and I parted ways with Matt to head over the the Amazon Prime Video Experience, featuring activations for The Expanse, The Boys, and Carnival Row. This was my first official SDCC activation experience, and I think it may have tricked me with its ease! We waited in line for about 15 minutes before it opened, and in the time we’re treated to big umbrellas for shade, and offered cold water bottles. In a very short amount of time we were allowed in and provided with a wicked experience.

Upon entering the site you are given special coins and mini churros! There is a giant, beautiful, reflective, colourful structure in the middle surrounded by AstroTurf, covered tables, a large screen with shaded couches which I’m assuming will be for when they show the premieres later this week. As well there are three separate and very different areas that allow you to enter and have an incredibly immersive experience based on each of the featured shows.

We started off by heading into the experience for The Expanse. After again waiting in line for what I assume is a very short amount of time in SDCC reality, sliding doors opened to let us into some sort of Space transportation. We were quickly informed that we‘re on a UN mission to figure out what this attack had been about (I’ve never seen the show, so I’m a little fuzzy on the details), before the doors open at the opposite end and we walk out into a space-tastic wasteland. Quickly our group was split up and we are guided by space people to interrogate/help (?) other space people who have been captured by other space people. It’s a real moral conundrum cause you don’t know whose in the right and suddenly a dispute explodes between different factions and you’re quickly whisked back out into reality. So. Freaking. Cool!

After that we headed over to The Boys activation area. Again we were quickly ushered… well yelled at to quickly get in here! Our group quickly filed into an electronics store that had its front window smashed in by a car, that was currently sat with smoke billowing out of the hood, half in/half out of the storefront. We were quickly informed that we were joining a group of people fighting against the destruction and pain caused in the wake of super heroes doing hero work. We quickly discovered that one of the group members worked at this store and is now missing, so we had to find clues to where he went and what had happened here. Our group had to rummage around this destroyed store and I managed to find two of the clues we were looking for! The whole scene ended with someone who had been planted in our group being murdered by one of the characters and us running out of the store.

I love immersive theatre, and this was so much fun! What a neat way to get people jazzed on a new show. Initially when hearing about this show I was intrigued simply because Seth Rogen is an executive producer (and I’m a big fan of that guy!), but now I’m extra invested and can’t wait for it to air!

After that we went and grabbed a branded and delish (and free!) Carl’s Jr. burger and watched a super neat performance based on The Boys play out on the central shiny structure. Check out our instagram for sneak peeks into these experiences!

After that we waited in an actual line that took actual time, like maybe 30-45min, which is still short by SDCC standards for the Carnival Row experience. After this sooo long of wait (teehee) we sadly were not let into the experience because the cards we were given showed that we were creatures and they didn’t have any more room for creatures, only humans. So I popped a squat and got comfy to wait another 15 minutes.

In the time we waited in line we actually got to see another performance on the central structure, this time a scene from the universe of Carnival Row where fairies were being hunted down by some sort of police and were sadly beaten down.

Once we did actually get let into the Carnivval Row we were immediately treated to some race/class discrimination. Because we had drawn ‘creature’ cards we were allowed in, but were treated poorly, being yelled at to hurry, to not take pictures of the characters, to stand in single file and not move etc., where as when the ‘humans’ were let in they were encouraged to take pictures, told to spread out and get comfy, generally treated respectfully etc.!

After a few moments we were guided into a market where fairies or creatures (I’m not totally sure) were selling their wares. One of them came up to Derek and I and asked if we wanted some love potion, and then proceeded to spray us with this ‘love potion’, so we just love each other now! Then the police people who had let us in game in and were getting mad about stuff so we were ushered into the next area, which was set up as a little cabaret type club room. It was super effing neat.

The cabaret room had a stage rotating through performers, with a fairy type person singing beautifully, and another doing a strip tease type thing, and then the singer again. At this point one of the characters came up and started talking to me, asking where I was from and telling me about where they’d come from and how this space was meant to be a safe space for every species etc.. literally during this conversation a character ran in terrified and asking to be hidden, followed quickly by the police people searching for her and trying to get her. During this we were quickly ushered through the next door and submerged back into muggy reality!

After finishing up at the Amazon Prime Video Experience Derek and I rushed over to the abandoned Horton Plaza to check out the FYE shop, and buy a couple more Stranger Things shirts (because I can’t stop won’t stop loving my fave show Stranger Things). And then popped over to grab a bite to eat and a couple cold beverages before the show floor opened for the evening.

Going into the preview night I knew my first stop would be the Mondo booth… what a didn’t know was that it would be my only stop!

I struggled to figure out exactly how to get into the convention centre, which I had kind of expected after hearing Derek’s stories every year about every employee giving a different answer to the same questions. However as it ended up I entered the centre around row 3000, and needed to rapidly get to the Mondo booth located in row 400. I speed walked as hard as I could without jogging, and still ended up arriving at a line that went all the way from the booth in row 400, and ended near row 900. And this booth only ‘ended’ because it had been capped and there was a courageous Mondo-man, in a bad ass pink jacket, fending people away from the end of the line.

Everyone was being instructed to go away and check back in an 30 minutes, then in an hour, then eventually told that there was no way the Mondo line up would be opening again this night. You’d think that would mean the end of the line and everyone walks away. Turns out that is not how this business works. Right off the bat I decided to hover around the end of the line, figuring that was easier than coming back in 30 Minutes with no clue what was happening. I noticed a few other people milling about so I approached a couple dudes to find out if they were also waiting for the Mondo line. Turned out they were, and we quickly became best line buddies! Well I guess technically we weren’t in the line, but you know what I mean! Turns out Stephen does this on the regular in order to grab those sweet SDCC exclusives, so I was reassured that I was taking the right approach. So were apparently a billion other people.

Flash forward a couple hours later to a hover-hoard of probably a hundred people, and a multitude of bewildered security guards trying (unsuccessfully) to get everyone to scatter away from the Mondo line instead of clogging the congested aisle. The line had dwindled to almost nothing and our glorious Pink Jacket Prophet gathered us around him to share the secret that we would in fact have a shot at getting into the Mondo line! Our hovering paid off when PJP was searching through the crowd for the hardcore hoverers and picked Stephen (and by extension me, due to our newly forged best bud status). So long story short by 8:30 I was standing in front of the Mondo booth, sharing my nervous excitement with the excited for me Mondo employee, as I tried desperately to make sure I didn’t forget which very important things I had just waited almost 3 hours for! I ended up being to get the limited edition (just 125) Batman poster that I had my heart set on, and I felt like I friggin earned it!

After Mondo I awkwardly waddled over to our booth, trying desperately to dodge the sea of people, and managed to get that sweet sweet poster tucked away in the safety of a poster tube! I also found a Derek there, and we took the opportunity to use the last few minutes of opening night to go grab some cricket bars, in celebration of the new Snowpiercer show! Also fun fact, somehow crickets are related to shellfish so if you are allergic to shellfish don’t be trying to get in on that! (Isn’t evolution freaking crazy!?)

When the show floor closed we scooped Matt and Jon and hurried, as fast as our sore tired feet could take us, over to Lolita’s for some tacos!

Everyone had basically collapsed by the time dinner was done and it was all we could do to drag our sorry asses outta there and back to the hotel room. The amount of tired and sore happening in my body definitely made the thought of scootering waaay less scary, and we managed to scoot about 2/3 of the way home!

Now it’s midnight, I’m exhausted, and I’m gonna stop talking. Thursday is gonna be my busiest day and I am tired just thinking about it… but I’m also so stoked about all the neat stuff I’m gonna see and do! Talk to you soon!