by petro rabbit » Thu Aug 14, 2014 3:17 pm
For those of you that don't know. In order to get in that damn hasbro line at SDCC, you have to either:
1) try and beat everyone to the booth on Wednesday's preview night, by lining up early, only to find out that exhibitors allowed in an hour earlier and have practically bled the booth dry already
2) come back every morning until you get a ticket to get in the booth, which they give out at 6am (sometimes people even camp out). And there's only a certain amount handed out each day, so you could line up and end up not getting one.
3) the "bouncer" guarding the front of the booth's line, randomly, and I mean RANDOMLY, hands out a hand full of tickets. Where you plead or beg along with a small crowd, each doing the same, but he will never give in and then are told to clear the area and not to loiter around until the random tickets are handed out. So now you and many others are scrambled around surrounding booths like black ops, waiting to pounce, only to be kicked out or just didn't get there in time because he only gives a hand full of tickets. All this is the middle of the sea of madness that is SDCC.
I'd be pissed if I saw that not only once, but now twice these "show" exclusives are available to everyone online. Don't get me wrong I think everyone should be allowed to buy whatever they want, but then at least stop calling them exclusives for the show. Just copy what Toys r us does every year with their exclusives, where those that attend the show get first dibs, but they will be sold for mass market afterwards.
I went to SDCC for the last 4 years and to get into Hasbro's line to buy exclusives is the most demeaning, frustrating, and almost embarrassing thing I've ever had to do. Degrading grown men and parents, buying for their children, making them jump through hoops, just get "exclusives" only to find out later they're not really exclusive.
I've got my exclusives almost every year and its brutal trying to get them, so I didn't even wanna bother trying this year. I walked past the line a couple times and asked if they're giving away the 'random tickets' and got denied. That was for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I came back on Saturday and the "bouncer" that guards the booth was gone. Instead there was just a worker sitting on a stool, off to the side of the ropes, so I asked if I could enter the line, thinking of course I can't *rolling eyes*. He replied with "yep" and I walked in with ease to buy my Dinobots. All I could think about was, what if I wasted the time/energy to get those damn tickets. SMH
This is not hate to any of my fellow TF collectors who didn't get a chance to attend the show, it's just to show you what you have to go through if you did.