San Diego Comic-Con badge sales on hold after technical difficulties

SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — San Diego Comic-Con has delayed its open badge sale for 2025 after comics fans hoping to secure a pass for the convention reported having difficulties with its ticketing portal.

The open registration period is historically a chaotic time for prospective attendees, given the sheer demand for the limited number of badges available after earlier periods for ticket sales like returning registration for those who had gone to the convention the year before.

This year's, however, proved to be a little more tumultuous minutes into the window opening at 9 a.m. on Saturday.

Social media users have said the portal for ticket sales froze up on their computers while a ticket was in their cart or kicked them out after waiting for prolonged periods of time in the waiting room. Others said they were able to complete a purchase, but they had not yet been charged.

As detailed by the blog Friends of Comic-Con, the issues began rearing their head around the time the waiting room opened at 8 a.m. — one hour before the registration window began. Hopeful attendees were met with a brief error message saying the service "was not available."

Then, about 15 minutes after the queue began, people started reporting technical issues. Around 9:30 a.m., Comic-Con put out a note to those in the queue that read in part, "We have received word from our registration company that the anomaly we are currently experiencing is potentially a larger issue than they originally thought"

"For this reason, we have been advised to stop the current registration process," the message continued.

San Diego Comic-Con officials echoed the message to those in the open registration portal in a post on X, formerly Twitter, around 10 a.m. Saturday, saying badge sale will not resume that day and a new sale date will be announced once more information is available.

As of Monday afternoon, no new details about when the next open registration period will begin have been added to San Diego Comic-Con's website.

In a statement to FOX 5/KUSI, a spokesperson for Comic-Con said a new date will be set once its registration company is "confident the badge sale can proceed."

"We apologize for the frustration this has caused, and we thank you very much for your patience while they work to resolve the problem," the spokesperson continued.

Next year's rendition of San Diego Comic-Con, which is scheduled for July 24 to July 27, 2025, comes on the heels of the convention's splashing return to normalcy after several years hampered by the pandemic and the Hollywood strikes.

Celebrity sightings, major announcements and exclusive opportunities — all things that made San Diego's comics extravaganza one of the hottest tickets for comics fans to get — returned in large part in the 2024 convention, held last July.

While schedules are never announced until the week before the convention, 2025 is likely to return with the same luster as last summer, barring any major upheaval in the industry.