San Diego Comic-Con Unofficial Blog

This isn’t meant to be a review, but we just have to say it: If you’re lucky enough to live in seven cities – New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Austin, San Francisco, Seattle and Toronto – you must include going to see Attack The Block in this weekend’s plans. The British import, executive produced by Edgar Wright and written and directed by longtime-collaborator and first-time director Joe Cornish, is depending on strong word-of-mouth and a solid showing when it opens limited on July 29 in order to expand to a wider release. And in a season of big-budget blockbusters and established licenses, it is the most fun we’ve had at the movies all year.

We can say this with certainty because we were lucky enough to attend a special Comic-Con screening of the film on Thursday, July 21 at the Reading Gaslamp theater, courtesy of our friends at /Film.

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When news hit that Jon Favreau would be staging a big premiere of his upcoming summer blockbuster Cowboys & Aliens at Comic-Con, we reported that a big event was looking at using PETCO Park the Thursday during the con, per a tweet [since deleted] from Latino Review’s Elmayimbe.

It was later confirmed that the premiere was going to be held at the San Diego Civic Theater on Saturday, July 23. So what ever happened to that Thursday event at PETCO Park, then?

We now have the answer thanks to one of our readers.

Cirque Du Soleil will be performing a battle scene from their “KA” production, currently playing at the MGM Grand. Live at PETCO Park on Thursday July 21. The event will begin at sundown, and was featured in an advertisement in the July issue of Wired magazine. The best news yet, is that admission will be free and no ticket is required.

We’ve added this to our Offsite Events 2011 list as well, but thought this was cool enough to get separate mention.

I’ll be starting the Offsite Events 2011 page in early June, but I wanted to give everyone a heads up now about tickets to one of the most popular events. w00tstock is a geeky variety show that’s hosted by comedians Paul and Storm, Mythbusters co-host Adam Savage, and overall SDCC idol Wil Wheaton. Each event features various comedians, actors, singers, and other performers from the geek world having fun and doing whatever it is they do best.

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I was going to review the experience of riding in Black Beauty (the Green Hornet car), but unfortunately I was unable to. When I arrived at the designated spot the employees said they couldn’t drive the car after dark because of its green headlights. Thus, I was stuck in the garage and couldn’t ride the car. Still, the garage was an interesting experience.

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Attendees looking for a bit of excitement can head over to the Candy Factory at Petco’s Park at the Park where they will be able to take a ride in Black Beauty, the car unveiled at SDCC last year and pictured above. Read on for the details!

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Well, So Diego Tours has you covered with there Comic Crawl! It’s a pub/bar crawl this Thursday from 7-10pm in the Gaslamp district of San Diego. Participants buy wristbands for $20 and this gets them two free drinks, bites, and happy hour prices. Read on for more details!

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After completing the last additions to the Offsite Events list, I did the final update to the exportable Calender version. This means that anyone who previously downloaded it will want to do it again now. Also, if there are any events that pop up during the con, I will tweet or do a small post about them but won’t add them to the Offsite Events list/calendar. Thanks!

This is Part 4 and the last post in a series. You can read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, and Part 3 here.

Yes, the convention center is an amazing place. If you can run off Starbucks and Mrs. Fields you should feel free to stay there all day. Hey, if you can find a dark and concealed corner you could stay there all night. We’re assuming neither of those will happen though, so this is the guide for when you leave the convention center and journey into San Diego!

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As you may have noticed, the Offsite Events Tab at the top of the page now has two more viewing options that drop down when you put your mouse over it. You can click the normal tab and it will take you to the big list with all the details and links for each event, but if you click the other two you are taken to new pages.

The first of these pages is the Calendar View, in which you can see the events formatted like a calendar. The cool use for this lies at the bottom of the page, where you can export it into other applications. Users of iCal, Google Calendars, and Microsoft Outlook, or other calendar programs can all copy and paste the address given at the bottom into the export feature of their chosen application. Once you do this all the events will be copied into that calendar. You can then add, delete, or do whatever you see fit to customize it.

The other tab is a more straightforward list view that just puts all of the events in order. It’s useful for figuring out the timing of events on each night and deciding if you can attend multiple ones.

One of the drawbacks to these views is that events that happen every day, such as the Zoo or Seaworld, could not be included. The only other drawback is that I can’t put links inside the events so if you want to buy tickets or go to the official site for an event, you will need to go back to the normal page view. I included details in each event’s description that say if buying tickets in advance is suggested. Most of the tickets are simply suggested (not mandatory) because it is likely that they will be selling them at the door. Still, this is not guaranteed for most events so I included it as a precaution.

I hope you enjoy the new features!