The hype is in full swing already for this summer's San Diego Comic-Con, with hotel reservations for the event just made available the morning of Wednesday Feb. 27.
Reservations began at 9 a.m. Pacific time and ended shortly thereafter. Comic-Con's housing page now bears a brief message stating, "Housing for Comic-Con is closed at this time." It does state, however, that housing will re-open on Tuesday, March 12 at 9 a.m. Pacific time, so those who weren't able to grab a room Wednesday morning may still have a chance, although none of the downtown hotel space is still available.
The reservations site was overseen by the agency Travel Planners and over 50 hotels participated in the discounted room rate. A link to the site was sent to those able to secure a badge for the event.
It is not uncommon for these rooms to sell out quickly, as hotels not part of the discounted program tend to charge significantly higher rates. The Comic-Con-sponsored reservation system operates on a first-come, first-served basis and asks those booking a room to list their top six hotel choices by preference.
Badges for the event went on sale Feb. 16 and in less than two hours, four-day and single-day tickets were sold out. The event may sell more badges based on the number of returned badges or cancellations.
Twitter is ablaze with comments in the wake of the reservations.
"The rush to get into #SDCC is getting ridiculous," one person tweets. "We are 5 months away and people are already lining up."
So what do we know about San Diego Comic Con so far? It's safe to say that we'll see a lot of news about upcoming superhero movies, including "Iron Man 3," "Man of Steel," "The Avengers 2" as well as the "Thor" and "Captain America" sequels. And then there's "Star Wars." With director J. J. Abrams ("Star Trek," "Super 8") and screenwriter Michael Arndt ("Toy Story 3") on board, the film could have a large presence at the event.
Forthcoming news about video games is unclear, but we can probably expect to hear something about the "Assassin's Creed" and "Zelda" franchises.
San Diego Comic-Con will take place from July 18 to 21. Over 130,000 people are expected to attend.
