Going to San Diego Comic-Con Just Became Even More of a Nightmare

For most people, going to San Diego Comic-Con is a Herculean task long before they set foot in Southern California. It’s expensive, it’s hard to plan, and even if you manage to get a badge, you haven’t gotten to the worst part: the hotels. But don’t worry, it’s about to get worse. For Comic-Con 2026, the convention is changing its hotel reservation policy, which was already dubbed “Hotelpocalypse.†Now, even calling it something like “Hotelpocalypse 2: Beyond Armageddon†barely feels like enough.

As noticed by the fine folks at the SDCC Unofficial Blog, Comic-Con recently updated its hotel reservation policy for 2026. The system is pivoting from its previous randomized lottery system to a “live-sale format, allowing participants to make reservations in real time based on a randomized queue,†according to the official site. Plus, the once-refundable deposit that you had a few days to pay (and weeks to refund) is now non-refundable, and “inventory is not reserved until the payment is processed.†Basically, now, they’re taking the wait out of it and making it much more cutthroat.

For years, the process to reserve a hotel required potential attendees to wait in an elaborate online queue system; then, based on a randomized order, they filled out a form and were slotted into a room days later based on factors out of their control. There were a few other details too, but that’s the general idea. It was not a good system, but it did handle the huge number of people vying for the same rooms in a mostly controlled way and allowed for people to make changes in the months afterward.

This new system, though, is just a killer. Like going after a limited edition item online, but with bigger stakes and way, way more people. Now, on the surface, we kind of understand why this change might seem good on paper. People will know where they stand immediately, with all mystery and waiting taken out of the equation. And, frankly, since we haven’t seen it play out in real time yet, we don’t know for sure it won’t work. However, based on how chaotic the old system was and has been for a very, very long time, we feel like there are just too many chances for this to be worse.

Everyone will, of course, target the big, popular, close hotels first. Then move down the line. But, with your room not confirmed until your payment is processed, you suffer the chance of getting all the way to the end of the process, hitting a “sold-out†sign, then going back and getting a way worse spot. Plus, the deposit is now instant and non-refundable. In the past, you didn’t have to pay the deposit until you were assigned a hotel. If you like that hotel, great. If you didn’t, you just canceled, and it went back into the system. And, if plans changed in the weeks ahead, you had until a few weeks before the convention for a large percentage refund. Now, none of that is the case. The deposit is “equal to two nights’ room rate plus tax,†which “is required at the time of booking,†plus a 3% “service and technology fee.†There’s just no room for error.

And all of that is assuming the system can handle the traffic and not crash, which is always a strong possibility. Basically, the old system—flawed as it may have been—at least offered everyone a glimmer of hope and a chance to move things around. This new one is cold, brutal, and unforgiving. How long will it take if you aren’t immediately picked? With people having to carefully select and fill in all their info under real pressure, things will go slowly. Could the sale go on for hours? Days? We don’t know. And hey, maybe it’ll work out. We’ll see. But having gone through Hotelpocalypse many, many, many times over the years, and mostly with negative results, we are understandably pessimistic about this.

You can read more about the changes on the official Comic-Con site. A date for the sale has not yet been announced, but it’s usually in April.

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