The holiday shopping season is officially underway, but for San Diego Comic-Con hopefuls, the most coveted item on their wishlists wasn’t something they could find under the tree.

Today marked Open Registration, the final opportunity for fans to secure badges for San Diego Comic-Con 2027. With thousands of hopeful attendees competing for a chance to experience the biggest pop culture convention of the year, there was plenty of excitement, anticipation, and more than a little pre-holiday stress.

So, who got an early Christmas present, and who was left with coal in their stocking?

Rockin’ Around the Waiting Room

It seems Santa brought Comic-Con attendees an early gift this year: another relatively stress-free Open Registration.

After the technical headaches of 2024, which saw the sale canceled and rescheduled entirely, last year’s Open Registration went much more smoothly. Thankfully, that trend continued for 2027. The waiting room opened right on schedule at 7:30am PT, and there were no major technical issues to report that we saw. For a morning that already comes with plenty of nerves, a little holiday peace and quiet was a welcome gift.

Run Rudolph Toucan Run

At 9am PT, it was time to find out who’d been naughty, nice, or just plain lucky. The waiting room automatically refreshed, assigning everyone a random spot in line, an estimated wait time, and a Toucan whose journey across the screen ranged from a Christmas miracle to a very long winter’s nap. Some fans barely had time to check their lists twice before being whisked straight into the sale.

Most users reported initial wait times of “more than an hour”, but those quickly started to lower, as more people kept making it through to purchase — even if some were making some, uh, difficult decisions.

From here, it was a slow and steady path to selling out, with times split somewhere between last year’s Open Registration (which took a whopping 149 minutes all in) and last month’s Returning Registration (which took only 90 minutes).

As always, Preview Night was the first day to sell out, at 43 minutes — pretty much on par with last year’s 46 minutes during Open Registration. For comparison, it took 35 minutes in Returning Registration.

The next day to sell out was Saturday, which took significantly less than last year. It sold out at 68 minutes, which was right in between last year’s 74 minutes in Open Registration, and last month’s 68 minutes in Returning Registration.

This was followed by Friday badges at 78 minutes — again split down the middle between last year’s 89 minutes in Open Registration, and last month’s 68 minutes in Returning Registration.

Thursday and Sunday have historically sold out at roughly the same time, with Thursday sometimes going a few minutes earlier. That was the case today, when Thursday finally sold out at a whopping 111 minutes into the sale, down from last year’s 144 minutes(!), and 90 minutes last month in Returning Registration.

Now for the most interesting part (to me, anyway!). Last year’s badge sale took longer than normal, at 149 minutes, and we noticed that towards the end of the sale, you could hop on and get through to purchase a Sunday badge in only 3-4 minutes.

I wanted to test this theory again, so after Friday badges sold out, I joined a new queue. The time quickly dropped from more than an hour to 37 minutes — and ultimately I did make it through in time to purchase a Sunday badge (as did others on our live show who joined the queue after 9am).

What does that mean? If you join the waiting room after 9am, you’re sent to the back of the line — so that means there was both hardly anyone still in line, and that late-comers could purchase at least a single badge. But what it really means, to me at least, is that anyone who was prepared and on time prior to 9am — barring any technical difficulties — should have had no issues securing at least one badge day.

That, to me, is excellent news. It means that if you were willing to put in even a modicum of work by showing up on time, you were rewarded. That is ultimately the best case scenario I can think of.

In the end, Sunday sold out at 122 minutes — much faster than last year’s 149 minutes in Open Registration, though longer than last month’s 90 minutes in Returning Registration.

 

Not So Merry

As with any sale of this scale, there were a few technical glitches. The captcha issue from last month reared its head again for a few users.

There were a few other scattered issues, but they seemed to be few and far between this year.

 

Overview & Next Steps

At the end of the day, no other event like San Diego Comic-Con is capable of selling this many badges, this quickly. The only reason it even takes 122 minutes is because they filter people through the purchasing process slowly, to keep the site from crashing. If they didn’t, assuming it didn’t immediately go down (it would), it would all be over in seconds or minutes, not hours.

But I do think demand is ever so slightly down, especially for Thursday and Sunday badges. Those are perhaps the less “sexy” days, perhaps, but I would argue that Thursday rivals Friday most years at the con. As evidenced above, we witnessed with our own eyes that you were able to log in late and still secure a Sunday badge — which didn’t used to happen until last year.

Here’s a look at previous sell out times, for reference:

• 2014: Open Reg: 72 minutes / Returning Reg: 155 minutes
• 2015: Open Reg: 45 minutes / Returning Reg: 47 minutes
• 2016: Open Reg: 55 minutes / Returning Reg: 77 minutes
• 2017: Open Reg: 72 minutes / Returning Reg: 58 minutes
• 2018: Open Reg: 64 minutes / Returning Reg: 73 minutes
• 2019: Open Reg: 72 minutes / Returning Reg: 52 minutes
• 2020: Open Reg: 66 minutes / Returning Reg: 59 minutes
• 2023: Open Reg: 76 minutes / Returning Reg: 96 minutes
• 2024: Open Reg: 74 minutes / Returning Reg: 89 minutes
• 2025: Open Reg: 113 minutes / Returning Reg: 100 minutes
• 2026 Open Reg: 149 minutes / Returning Reg: 88 minutes
• 2027 Open Reg: 122 minutes / Returning Reg: 90 minutes

As I said earlier, this ultimately to me is actually great news. It means that those individuals willing to at least be on time for the badge sale are able to secure at least one badge day. Getting everyone who wants to attend the convention, actually into the convention? And still selling out in just over two hours? That’s a win all around to me, for both Comic-Con and attendees.

And that’s exactly what we’re seeing with our readers. Although unscientific, 85% of our readers reported being able to get at least one badge day. Less than 7% reported that they weren’t able to purchase only because the badge day sold out, 3% reported some kind of glitch, and 5% reported they couldn’t purchase because badges sold out.

For those 5%, I would wager every single one showed up late into the sale.

Again, in my mind, this is great news all around. So hopefully you were one of those 85% and able to secure a badge today. And to everyone — enjoy the holidays, and we’ll see you at San Diego Comic-Con 2027!