It’s here! San Diego Comic Con has officially opened up a lottery system for a few of the brands whose exclusive items can be extremely difficult to purchase at the convention. Hasbro, Lego, Funko, and UCC Distributing are participating in this new system, so hopefully it pans out for them. As for the fans, it seems many have mixed reviews. While some felt that it was more of a guarantee to just wait in line for hours on end, others are excited for the chance to skip the line altogether even if it is up to chance whether or not you’ll get a time slot. I for one am looking forward to this new direction even if lady luck is rarely on my side. I’d rather take my chances with this than miss any more of the convention by waiting in lines.
In order to be eligible, you have to have a Comic Con 2018 badge associated with your member ID and be aged 13 years or older. From there, you should be able to sign on to the Exclusives portal where you can select a company and time slot to try to buy your exclusive.
Comic Con sent out these instructions for logging into the exclusives portal: “To see if you are eligible to participate, simply log in to your Member ID account and select the “Exclusives” tab. If eligible, you will see a link to access the Exclusives Portal.
The Exclusives Portal will close for submissions of interest at 12:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) on July 12, 2018. There will be no onsite opportunities to be selected to participate in any of the exclusive merchandise purchasing time slots. We encourage you to visit the Exclusives Portal well in advance of the deadline to submit your interest.
Fans will be randomly selected shortly after the Exclusives Portal closes on July 12. After the random selection process is complete, an email notification will be sent to you with instructions to log back into the Exclusives Portal and see if you were selected.
Please keep in mind that not all eligible participants will be selected. Adding an exclusive merchandise purchasing time slot to your cart does not guarantee you the ability to participate.â€
If you’re a fan of this system, then you’ll be eager to know that autographs will be set up in the same manor. What isn’t clear yet is if and how any one person might be limited in the number of autographs that they can even choose for the lottery system. Right now, it appears that you will only be allowed to choose one time slot per company for the exclusives, but of course nothing will guarantee that spot unless you get the golden ticket email after July 12th. Good luck, and may the odds be ever in your favor. Sorry, it was just too easy to pass up that opportunity!
Worst idea ever. Especially only a few WEEKS before the con. I spent THOUSANDS of dollars to go and they pull this? NOT RIGHT.