Is Blizzcon worth it?

I think anyone who is a Blizzard fan should try to experience BlizzCon at least once. It's just a very unique experience to be there opening morning and hear the thousands of people shouting "For the Horde!" and "For the Alliance!". Just the thousands of people that love the same thing you do there to just meet each other and have fun. It's like coming home to me now. I see my guildies and old friends every year and now get to meet a ton of our players and just talk about the stuff we all love and have in common.

I recognize it can be a little expensive but that's why I say "at least once". Even if I wasn't an employee I'd still be going to it every year. I would make it a goal to save at least a small amount every paycheck to cover it and just save up over the year.

It's easy to travel and not spend a lot of money as long as you're doing it smart, its easier as well if you live in North America as flights aren't outrageously more expensive.

05/09/2018 10:11 AMPosted by Jugajr

And I'm not a good planner.

I used to be the same way! There's a lot of little "BlizzCon hacks" that you learn over the years. Most of which are usual things you should do while traveling.

Book flights 3-4 months in advance.

Wiggle the days around to find the lowest price, coming a day or two early or maybe leaving a day or two late.

If you have guildies or friends coordinate hotels or places to crash. My friends rent a house for a week and a half and we split the cost like 15-20 ways and crash all over the place. It ends up costing us around $200 each FOR THE WEEK. Yeah you read that right.

It's easy to save money immediately if you're not staying at the Hilton or Marriott. They're nice and extremely convenient but you can save like half the price being 2-3 miles away.

You can use ridesharing services or walk anywhere you need to go. I know people that come in and have forgone the trouble of renting cars. It saves you the price of rental fees, gas, AND parking. This is more of a personal preference at this point I think.Every convention has these little things to be aware of that makes it easy to do them. BlizzCon is no exception :)

05/09/2018 10:23 AMPosted by Autri

It's what you make of it OP. As someone else said, it's just like any other Con, so if you don't enjoy them in general, then you won't enjoy Blizzcon.

This is a great perspective to look at it too. It's fun and worth it if you make it fun and worth it.

05/09/2018 12:02 PMPosted by Apropos

I don't appreciate you censoring my free speach Ythisens.

Not to get in an argument about civil liberties because that's a Pandora's Box but you don't have that here. It doesn't mean what you think it means.
You're welcome to read the Code of Conduct here where the following is stated:
"Your access to these forums is a “privilege,” and not a “right.” Blizzard Entertainment reserves the right to suspend your access to these forums at any time for reasons that include, but are not necessarily limited to, your failure to abide by these guidelines."

05/09/2018 12:02 PMPosted by Apropos

If you don't like people quoting you, maybe don't go around blue posting about how people should spend their money.

You deliberately misquoted me 11 times and spammed the same phrase each time. Your post added nothing of value and was spammy so it was deleted. I would consider that and this post a warning.

05/09/2018 04:14 PMPosted by Deydrania

The Blue CM pays so little because he/she/it lives in California, gets discounts for being a Blizzard employee, and has local friends who also go.

I'm talking in particular from my experience of two previous BlizzCons prior to being an employee. Of my four BlizzCons only 1 have I lived in California for. The previous ones I was flying in from Texas. All of which I stayed with guildies who some I've known now for almost 10 years that were flying in as well. Once you become an employee the only discount you get is a free ticket but you're usually here working in that case.

I understand it's not always as feasible for some. I posted some of my experiences to say there are ways to do it and some ways to save money in the process that not a lot of people actually are aware of.

05/09/2018 05:12 PMPosted by Sugarhoof

It's even easier to get there via Mage port!

That's probably an Elon Musk company already. Give it a couple of years and he'll sell it bundled with a flamethrower.

05/09/2018 05:32 PMPosted by Aehl

Not as if we dont have venues..we have loads.

One thing that gets underestimated is how huge BlizzCon has become. Its not easy to just move it to another location. The Anaheim Convention Center has a total floor space of 1.6M square feet (that's like 150k square meters for the rest of the world) we take up almost all of it at this point and the new hall that they built which I don't believe is accounted for in that figure. The largest convention center in Australia for example is I believe the new International Convention Centre in Sydney. It's only 404k square feet. It's about a quarter of the size. You couldn't fit BlizzCon there let alone the astronomical costs of trying to make something like that happen.

It's a big ordeal just having it right down the road in Anaheim. It takes so much work to plan and make BlizzCon happen. When one finishes the main BlizzCon team has already started planning the following years. It's kind of amazing they're able to pull it off because there are just so many moving parts.

Now I'm not saying it won't ever happen, but there's some obvious reasons why its always been at the Anaheim Convention Center and continues to be. I'd love for that to happen but realistically it's just not that easy.