In 2011, the San Diego Comic-Con sold out in seven hours. Last year, in little over an hour. This time around, the online waiting room shut its doors within minutes.
I emerged victorious. I clicked to get in at 9 a.m. exactly, and earned the #12,994th spot in line—but only after waiting several harrowing minutes for a server response. Heather, having done likewise on her own computer, was left to wait a little longer—and was instead forwarded to the above landing page at about 9:07 a.m. I was eventually moved on to the ticket purchase page at about 9:30 a.m., and got us both sorted; in the meantime, further attempts by her to access the waiting room were to no avail.
The #comiccon tag on Twitter is a litany of despair.
Update: reports on Twitter suggest that while the waiting room system has crapped the bed, people are still getting to buy tickets if they can get in. So keep trying!