As I’ve noted many times, while San Diego Comic-Con is a place of tradition, New York Comic Con is a free for all. San Diego keeps the same things at the same times year after year. At NYCC, things move around and you have to be on your toes…or just throw up your hands.
This year, NYCC introduced a new system for panel reservations. And I learned that while San Diego has its terrifying hotel room lottery, there are plenty of hotel rooms in New York City, so NYCC instead has a stressful “panel lottery” – Panel-pocalypse if you will.
Unlike SDCC’s system of wristbands and camping out, NYCC has long had online reservations for popular (i.e. media) panels in the Main Stage and the Empire Stage. While both places are roomy – the Main Stage seats about 2000-3000 people and the Empire 3000 – they are not big enough for the 250,000 people who attend NYCC every year.
I’m not sure when the reservation system was introduced (i never have time to cover these panels, so I didn’t really pay attention) but in the past it was strictly a first come, first served system: you got online and grabbed what you could.
This year, panel reservations became a true lottery. While NYCC does not have a superb, dedicated website like the Unofficial SDCC Blog, I found a description of the new system on a site called Friends of Comic Con:
Until last year, general attendees and VIP attendees each had a specific date and time when they had to access the reservation system and select the reservations they desired. Typically, everyone would crash the system at once, resulting in a queue to get into the system. For 2026, attendees will be able to access the reservation system at their leisure during a 48 hour window (from noon Eastern on September 14 through noon Eastern on September 16). They can select whatever reservations interest them and rank them in order of preference. This rank order can be changed as long as the reservation window is open.
Also new for 2026: attendees can only have one autograph reservation for the entire con. Previously, it was one autograph reservation per day. Once the reservation window closes, winners will be randomly selected. Attendees will be notified of any winning reservation slots between September 30 and October 2.
Reservations went live yesterday, so I decided to try out the system to see how it worked.
Unsurprisingly, there was a bit of confusion. Some people seemed to think you needed a physical badge to be verified before you could get into the reservation system. Not so: all you needed to do was enter the email associated with your badge, and pre-register for the lottery. I did this with no problem.
Like Hoteloween, people assumed that by getting on the starting page for reservations way early they would somehow jump the line. Not true: as with the hotel lottery, your place in line was randomized when you hit start.
I got on the start page at 11:59 and hit start at noon and was informed I was #10021. This sounded rather dire to me – and my sense of doom was increased when I was informed my waiting time would be about an hour! That was a lot of time to devote to an experiment! But after about 10 minutes the line was already down to 6000 or so people ahead of me, so I figured I would tough it out.
While the NYCC waiting room did not have the famous “Walking Man” of the hotel lottery, it did have a similar slider. And while I thought my number was very high, people on social media at the time were in the 30,000s! So I was looking good.
I got in at about 25 minutes in and it seemed all the big panels were still available. Highlights include Marvel Animation, One Piece, Jon Hamm, Star Trek, Yaga, and so on. I clicked on a few that seemed of interest (don’t worry I will return them to the system if I don’t attend) and was told my reservations were confirmed. And that was that.
Honestly not too scary!
For ME, anyway. Of course, Twitter and Reddit were filled at lamentations of grief and alarm. People with lower numbers than me didn’t get the panels they wanted. People at #40000 got everything they wanted. The system was unfair. The connection was bad. I’ll never get in…hey wait, I did and I got Nicolas Cage. It seems most people were pleasantly surprised.
Complaining online about things at a comic con is an everyday activity and honestly, given the huge number of people at the show, and the relatively few spots available, this seems like a fair system. You just can’t do everything at Comic Con anyway.
I think over all Panelpocalypse is just less stressful than Hotelpocalypse – having a place to stay for Comic-Con is way more crucial to actual survival than getting into a panel.
That said, NYCC has a huge disadvantage compared to SDCC: There are just not enough places to have panels! By my count there are 17 panel rooms spread around the main Javits, the River Pavilion and the Javits North. However three of those are in the River Pavilion, which is “pro only.” And some of the remaining ones are, to be brutally frank, quite small. If you want to go to a panel that doesn’t have reservations, be prepared to stand in a long, long line.
I don’t have my SDCC program handy but between the convention center, the Hilton, the Marriott and the Library, the con must have had around 30 different venues for panels in 2026. Panels are super important not only because they are fun and informative, but they keep people off the show floor. The Javits just has fewer places to put people, and this is one of the reasons the show floor is always so insanely crowded. 250,000 people is a lot for a venue that was never meant for huge consumer show crowds.
NYCC does one other thing that is vastly different: they clear the two big stages between panels. This is another thing that can be annoying, but is more fair when you get down to it. YOU get to see the Naruto panel you wanted and don’t have to sit through Nathan Fillion. Hall H campers are a thing, and that’s why you can go out and buy food and still stay in Hall H all day. The SDCC system rewards persistence, endurance and dedication.
NYCC is more random chance, kind of like the city it takes place in. New York City absorbs the whole con without breaking a sweat, and has way more re. We do “crowd” very well. Maybe this is why planning for the show is less of a D-Day-like precision operation than SDCC, which requires months of advance work. That would perhaps explain the lack of an “Unofficial NYCC Blog” site as well
I’m still confused about one thing: my panel reservations seem to be a done deal, so I didn’t have to rank my choices and won’t have to wait to see if I “won the lottery.” Unless I’m mistaken, the Funko Booth and the autographing sessions are actual lotteries where you must enter and then wait to see if you got a spot.
The autographing reservation lottery takes place Monday at noon ET for such folk as Matt Dinniman, Peach Momoko and Todd McFarlane. As mentioned above, you can get ONLY ONE AUTOGRAPH SESSION. Choose wisely! I guess I’ll see you back on Reddit for the kiss and cry.
