Spending San Diego Comic-Con with Fandango

Another San Diego Comic-Con has come and gone. The four day convention requires so much preparation and planning that I swear it's been affecting my schedule for at least a month, but it speeds by in the blink of an eye. The big highlights of this year's convention according to the scientific data that is my Twitter feed were Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the trailer for Batman v Superman: Dawn for Justice, the teaser for the Suicide Squad, and the panel for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2. Those panels all invaded the biggest panel room at the San Diego Convention Center: Hall H. I wonder what historians will make of the hours and hours attendees spend waiting and sleeping in line to get into Hall H.

I didn't catch those panels, but I did explore a whole lot of the convention center and the surrounding area. If you've never been to Comic-Con, you might not realize the exhibits and displays spill well out of the convention center into San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter, onto the lawn between the convention center and hotels, and beyond. It's hard to escape the convention unless you stay far away. FX set up buildings and a giant snow globe near the Hilton to promote shows such as American Horror Story: Hotel and Fargo. Ubisoft brought back a parkour/obstacle course for Assassin's Creed. Fox built a carnival ride to promote Scream Queens. Those are just a few examples of the outdoor activities.

I wondered around several of outdoor displays and inside the exhibit hall with Fandango on Thursday. Using the magic of Periscope, I tried my best to bring the Comic-Con experience to those who couldn't make it. Because really, it's not like any other convention. It's giant in a way that's hard to wrap your head around, and though photos nearly do the event justice, they don't capture the crush of the crowds and how much you get jostled around -- there is oh so much jostling.

We had people tune into watch the Periscope stream from all over the world. We took questions about the convention and tried our best to take requests from viewers about what they wanted to see. The Walking Dead was a popular choice. As scared as I am of zombies, I can't deny that AMC does a bang-up job of making their booth amazing and terrifying every year... but I didn't like to linger near it.

Later in the day, we decided to get outside to move away from the crowds (yes, the aisles in the exhibit hall were packed already, even on Thursday) so I could show off how much of Comic-Con overflows outside the walls. We saw the FX displays mentioned above, the pop-up carnival set up by Adult Swim – a character from Rick and Morty danced for us and I'm still a little scarred – and wandered across the pedestrian bridge into a corner with the Scream Queens ride, a Point Break display, and ice cream (also to promote Scream Queens). Ending with ice cream seemed like a perfect time to wrap the day's streaming.

It was fun to play the Comic-Con tour guide to the internet. I'm always happy to talk about experiences and fandoms I love, and I liked sharing that with viewers.

I'm still in Comic-Con recovery mode, but every step taken at the convention was worth it. I've been catching up on all the news that dropped during the convention, and if, like me, you missed the news and trailers that came from panels because you were at the convention or if you're just feeling out of the loop, you can sit down and catch up with the new Fandango MovieClips app (available for iOS and Android). The new trailer section has made it easy for me to see everything I missed without having to spend forever searching for the highest quality videos on YouTube.

To stay in the loop about future Periscope videos from Fandango – they film at red carpets and all sorts of events – follow Fandango on Twitter.

This post was sponsored by Fandango.