Comic-Con International implements new child badge policy, excluding certain [UPDATE February 25]

Comic-Con International implements new child badge policy, excluding certain [UPDATE February 25]

©2014 WBEI

[UPDATE]

A participant contacted recently Comic-Con International regarding the issue of badges for older children and received the following response:

“We understand that some potential children have passed the free child badge policy age range for Comic-Con due to the cancellation of our 2020 and 2021 events. As a current Comic-Con badge holder 2022, we would like to offer you the opportunity to purchase a Comic-Con 2022 badge for your now junior attendee (13-17 years old). If you would like to buy a badge for your junior, ask them to create a Member ID… Once complete, please send us the First Name, Last Name and Member ID of this Junior. In May or June 2022, we will send you a one-time purchase code that will allow you to go online and purchase a junior badge, although we are currently sold out. Your junior will only be able to buy the same type(s) of badge(s) that the corresponding adult has bought, i.e.: one day Friday, or 4 days without preview , or Saturday and Sunday single days, etc. The deadline for sending us the above information is May 1, 2022. We are unable to respond to requests sent after this date.

It is not clear if CCI intends to send an email or update their website regarding this change, but if you are affected by this issue, we recommend that you follow the steps outlined below. above. before May 1, 2022which are:

  1. Make a Member IDs for your junior
  2. Contact CCI with your junior’s first, last and member ID, along with a brief description that your child was previously a free child but has since aged and will need a badge junior for SDCC 2022. CCI has both a Contact form or you can email [email protected]

[PREVIOUS] We’re still over a year away from San Diego Comic-Con 2022, and after the year has passed, there’s sure to be plenty more policy changes to come. But the first real policy update – a change to the child badge policy – left many scratching their heads.

In the past, Comic-Con International has generously provided free badges to children ages 12 and under (usually with the “cut-off” date being around the end of July), without the need to pre-register these individuals to a badge, instead allowing them to register on site. Once they turn 13, shortly after a convention, CCI opens child-to-junior validation, a process where children (or more likely, their parents) can create a new junior member ID for themselves and validate that they attended the previous year’s convention. convention using a number found on the back of their old Comic-Con child badge.

This step is important as 13-17 year olds must be pre-registered for a badge in order to attend the next convention, and parents must go through the same steps of purchasing a return registration badge and/or returning. open registration we do for adult badges (although they are half price!).

So what’s different now? Last year, with hopes of a 2021 convention still on the horizon, Comic-Con International announced that the age for a free child badge would still be considered those who were 12 or younger on July 31, 2020 – basically saying, since there was no 2020 convention, we are honoring free child badges for those who had birthdays between August 1, 2020 and July 31, 2021.

Without a convention for two years, that has now changed. the new bed policy:

“Children ages 12 or younger as of July 31, 2021 will not need to purchase a badge for them for Comic-Con 2022 and may attend as a child with a paying adult. As this is the second year of cancellation, we must now implement a policy that children aged 13 or older on or before July 31, 2021 are not eligible to attend Comic-Con 2022 in as a child.

The problem, however, is that if your child had turned 13 between August 1, 2020 and July 31, 2021, they would not have been eligible to purchase a Junior badge during the later Comic-Con badge registration events ( for what would then be Comic-Con 2020, and the badges have since been voided) as your youngster would not have been considered a junior at the time. Now, however, they are also too old to be considered children under this new policy.

So where does that leave these kids? That is certainly the question. This is because unless Comic-Con International announces additional policy changes, children who turned 13 between August 1, 2020 and July 31, 2021 would be excluded from the convention, as badges are sold out and it is highly unlikely to be relisted.

CCI might announce a special Child to Junior validation period specifically for these children and allow them to purchase a Junior badge, but currently there is no verbiage on the website about this, and Comic-Con International has not failed to respond to repeated requests for clarification.

For parents, this uncertainty is particularly frustrating. While many understand that Comic-Con International has been hit hard by the economic impacts of the pandemic and they may simply not be able financially to allow those additional kids to qualify for a free badge for the moment, without revealing the plan (or if there is no plan) for these teenagers adds further stress to families after what has already been a particularly stressful year. Even mentioning, “We plan to allow eligible children to purchase a Junior badge at a later date, details to come” would put many minds at ease.

If you would like to contact Comic-Con International about this policy change, you can find the contact form in your member id.

Daniel K. Denny