San Diego Comic-Con 2024 is back. It’s a time when tens of thousands of fans from all over the world gather in America’s Finest City for a four-day celebration of pop culture, movies, television and, of course, comics. The annual convention has been going strong for over 50 years and shows no sign of stopping.
Even if you’re not attending the confab in person, you can still follow along and join in the fun.
Here’s everything you need to know about San Diego Comic-Con 2024.
What is San Diego Comic-Con?
You’ve probably heard about San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC or Comic-Con for short), but you might wonder what the heck all of the buzz is about.
Comic-Con started in March 1970 when a group of comic book enthusiasts gathered in the basement of a San Diego hotel and celebrated the genre. Over the years, artists and writers from the industry started showing up and the event started picking up steam.
Decades later, Hollywood started to take notice of the gathering and used it to promote their new shows and films; the watershed moment came in 2008, when new groups of fans poured into the San Diego Convention Center to see the cast of the first Twilight movie. At that point, tickets became scarce as interest in attending the event skyrocketed and became one of the hottest and most exclusive events of the year.
These days, many studios host their own events to showcase their projects. Despite the competition from studios and even with so many other pop culture conventions like New York Comic Con, San Diego Comic-Con is still considered to be the gold standard.
When is San Diego Comic-Con 2024?
San Diego Comic-Con 2023 takes place July 25 to July 28, with a special Preview Night on Wednesday, July 24. You must have a valid badge (SDCC-speak for ticket) to get into the convention.
The Exhibit Hall is open from 9:30 am PT to 7 pm PT Thursday through Saturday, and 9:30 am to 5 pm PT on Sunday. Panels and activities will take place throughout the evening, including the annual Will Eisner Awards on Friday night and the Masquerade costume contest on Saturday.
Where is Comic-Con 2024?
San Diego Comic-Con takes place at the San Diego Convention Center. The event has grown so big over the years that studios have taken their shows beyond the friendly confines of the Convention Center and into the surrounding Gaslamp Quarter.
Known as "offsite" locations, studios entice convention goers to their interactive exhibits, activations and displays with the added benefit that most of these activities don’t require a SDCC badge. Anyone can join in the fun and there are often exclusive free giveaways or photo opportunities at offsite locations to build excitement.
San Diego Comic-Con 2024 Schedule
You can find the complete panel schedule here.
We've outlined some of the most highly anticipated panels below:
THURSDAY
11:45 am PDT: Transformers One
1 pm PDT: Celebrating 25 Years of Nickelodeon's SpongeBob SquarePants
3:30 pm PDT: What We Do in the Shadows' Farewell Tour Kickoff
6:30 pm PDT: Marvel Studios - The Ultimate Deadpool & Wolverine Celebration of Life
FRIDAY
10 am PDT: Let's Hear It for Prime Video's The Boys
11 am PDT: The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
12:30 pm PDT: Into the Whoniverse- A Doctor Who Panel
1:45 pm PDT: The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2
2:45 pm PDT: The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon - The Book of Carol
SATURDAY
1:45 pm PDT: Star Trek Universe
4:45 pm PDT: The Penguin Panel
5:00 pm PDT: Anne Rice Universe
6 pm PDT: Marvel Studios
Is San Diego Comic-Con 2024 free?
You need a badge to get into events taking place inside the Convention Center. SDCC 2024 is sold out and no tickets will be available on site. Badges go on sale several months prior to the event and they sell out quickly.
As mentioned above, many of the offsite locations don’t require a SDCC badge so there are plenty of things to do around the San Diego Convention Center even if you can’t get inside.
Can I watch San Diego Comic-Com 2024 from home?
If you’re not able to attend San Diego Comic-Con in person, don’t worry — you won’t miss out on all of the fun. Most studios post trailers, announcements and videos from panels on their social media channels.
Generally, panels aren’t live streamed unless a studio so chooses; the exception to this is when the entire event went virtual in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.
There are cases where special footage will be released at SDCC but won't be available to the public for several days, weeks or even months after the event. Rest assured that this footage always makes its way to the fans, it's just held back for a short period to give fans at the event something exclusive to enjoy. (This isn't unique to SDCC; studios do the same thing at trade shows and other conventions to generate buzz)
San Diego Comic-Con 2024 news
Take a look at some of the trailers revealed at San Diego Comic-Con 2024:
