Audible returned to San Diego Comic-Con 2026 with a “Level Up Lounge,” bringing two of their most popular LitRPG audiobook series to life in the Gaslamp: Dungeon Crawler Carl, written by Matt Dinniman and narrated by Jeff Hays, and the Bobiverse series, written by Dennis E. Taylor and narrated by Ray Porter.
The experience was designed around earning XP tokens through a series of themed activities, encouraging exploration (and a few lines) within the space. Guests also enjoyed light bites, virgin Dirty Shirley’s (Princess Donut’s favorite drink, of course), and very special guests made time in their busy schedules to be available for photos and autographs for many Crawlers.
Among the many offsites competing for attention during SDCC, Audible’s Level Up Lounge proved to be one of the week’s most enjoyable fan experiences, especially for fans of the LitRPG audiobooks. While the full day of the Lounge, plus a pop-up donut truck on Friday, was a great expansion from Audible’s afternoon event in 2025, we hope that the company might look to extend their presence even more in future years, especially seeing how much the popularity of these properties is expanding.
Only open for one day, Saturday, July 25, reservations for the Lounge went on sale on Audible’s Instagram about a week before the event, with astandby line also also available on-site. The day was divided into eight half-hour entry times, with the last three slots of the day treated to a meet & greet with Dinniman and Hays.
After entering the Lounge, guests made a selection of their strengths on a scratch-off card, which could be redeemed for one of four class pins: Challenger, Collector, Listener, or Lore Master, and also earned your first XP token.
The next stop was a cosplay touch-up station, Level Up Prep, with two makeup stations loaded to the brim with anything a cosplayer could need. The application of temporary tattoos was a favorite choice here.
There were also audiobook stations loaded along the way, so you could listen to a selection of Audible samples throughout the venue.
The next stop was the Bobiverse-inspired BobNet with a photo op station, and a table to leave notes across the BobNet Exploration Board of resources or missions for future visitors. Naturally, a lot of these were quite amusing.
We moved on to the Dungeon Crawler Carl Survival Zone, which had a sound booth to leave a Crawler Incident Report, which gave you three options to talk about: The strangest thing you witnessed that day, your first level-up moment of the con, or you could leave a message for your fellow crawlers.
This activation had the longest line as it took the most amount of time, but you were emailed your incident report and had the option to grant Audible permission to use the report for ~something~ in the future.
Next it was onto the bites and refreshments, receiving of loot, and a photo op. As you completed each station, visitors were provided an XP coin which could be exchanged for Audible goodies at the end of the experience. Unless, of course, you were selected for a Rare Loot Upgrade, trading in all your coins for a random pick on the Epic Loot wall.
Tracking back to Friday, Audible brought a Princess Donut donut truck to the Gaslamp, with a variety of donut holes and swag. A surprise street team also joined in the festivities, and convention-goers may have seen the mob of Carls walking around downtown San Diego. (Comic Book Guy says, “Well, actually, Carl wasn’t wearing his pink crocs by the time he received his heart boxers.” — Yes, but we love it anyway!)
