On the Sunday we attended the second day of Blizzcon. This is a video game convention for the Blizzard company that makes Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm. Kris and I had been playing Word of Warcraft for years so we were keen to attend. Alana spend the day chilling at the hotel and the boys headed out to SoFi stadium to watch the NFL game between the Los Angeles Chargers and the Arizona Cardinals.
To enter Blizzcon we first needed to pick up our badges. The night before we had walked to the convention center and spoken to a security guard, asking where we needed to go the next morning to get the badges. He suggested we come early as there were long lines the previous day. He said he would be working the morning and would keep an eye out for us.
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| Flags leading up the Convention Centre |
When we arrived at 6:30 the next morning, there was a different security guard on the gates and when she asked where we were heading we told her that we needed badges. "Oh, you must be the Australians!" she replied.
Most of the attendees had picked up their badges on the Friday or the Saturday (we were only able to attend Day 2 due to Kristine's work commitments), so we walked straight through with no line and picked up our badges and loot packs:
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| The Convention Centre |
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| Banners |
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| The 'line' to get the badges |
We were able to swap our item voucher for a loot kit, which included a metal lunch box, drawstring bag, tauren space-marine model, thermos mug, Blizzcon Pin, Blizzcon badge and a lanyard.
We then returned to outside the main building and waited until the doors opened at 8am. From there we were allowed into the foyer, with the main internal doors set to open at 9am.
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| Doors to the World of Warcraft Stage |
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| Site Map |
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| Computer in the Shape of an Horadric Cube from Diablo |
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| Entry to the Diablo Stage |
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| Display of the Employee Service Gifts for Blizzard |
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| Overwatch and Blizzard Arcade |
We considered where we wanted to start - there was a huge crowd gathering at the Warcraft Stage entrance, and we had heard that a lot of the merchandise had sold out the previous days, so we decided to line up for the two merch sections - The Darkmoon Faire and the Blizzard Merch Store. There was a line starting to form at the escalator up to the Faire and we managed to get a position about 10th in line. We waited for about 20min until a staff member came up and told us that they weren't going to open the escalator, instead we needed to line up in the courtyard outside the Arena. When we got there, there was already a decent crowed forming and there were no lines, just an orange tape on the ground that we needed to gather behind. Kris and I found a spot nearest to the doors and waited. After a few minutes the guards told everyone to push back, so we found ourselves moved away from our spot. Then at 9am they started to let the limited access (wheelchairs, walking sticks etc.) group in. We waited until 9:15 (15 min after it was supposed to open) when a guard waved us all forward to the double glass doors. Everyone surged forward and we managed to get near to the front but the doors stayed closed. Then a guard came out and told us that we needed to move back from the doors. Unfortunately he was too quiet for those behind to hear so while the people at the front tried to back up, the people behind pushed forward so we couldn't really move. Then after another 10min or so they finally got everyone to move back behind the original orange line and then told us that they were limiting these doors to staff only and the only way into the Faire was back at the escalators inside. By now we were pretty frustrated - it was sunny and over 30 degrees so not the most comfortable to line up outside in, and now we were told to go back to where we had started, 30 minutes after the doors should have opened. When we got back to the escalator there was a line that spanned almost the entire length of the center and had a wait time of about an hour and a half or more. Not the best start to the day...
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| Just a small part of the line... |
We decided to check out the halls - there all connected, but split into four main halls, the arena and the Darkmoon Faire.
Hall A was Blizzard Arcade, Starcraft, Warcraft III and Overwatch. Hall B was Hearthstone and Diablo. Hall C was World of Warcaft and Hall D was the main stage.
We started at Hall A and worked our way across. There were a number of panel discussions about the games, meet & greet signings as well as playable game demos:
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| The Witcher cosplay |
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| Overwatch Esports Tournament at the Arena |
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| Quest Giver Cosplayer |
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| Demo Stations for World of Warcaft Forever |
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| Someone playing the demo |
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| The Overwatch area |
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| Overwatch |
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| Korean Gate in the Overwatch Section |
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| Tracer from Overwatch |
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| Lilith from Diablo IV |
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| Hells Ink - Diablo themed flash tattooing |
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| World of Warcraft Banner |
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| Grommash Hellscream from Warcraft |
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| Professions Plaza - making necklaces |
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| Warcraft Horde Theme |
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| Jaina Proudmoore from Warcraft |
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| The Dark Portal |
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| Gorehowl, Grommash's Axe |
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| Ashbringer |
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| Alliance Theme |
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| Diablo Fanta Promotion |
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| Writable posters - we've added a memorial to Saintseven and Weirdag to the bottom left |
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| Jim Raynor from Starcraft |
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| Sylvanas Windrunner from Warcraft |
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| Orc from Warcraft III |
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| Blizz Bites Food |
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| Warcraft III Classic Cup Game |
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| Grunty the Murloc Spacemarine |
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| Diablo |
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| Hearthstone |
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| Legacy of Terror - Diablo |
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| Diablo |
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| Artwork for the 30th Anniversary of Diablo |
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| Hearthstone |
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| Hearthstone Stage |
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| Diablo Sculptures |
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| Snaxxramas - Food |
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| World of Warcraft Arena Battle |
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| World of Warcraft Panel |
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| Artwork Displays |
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| Blizzard 35 - The Next Chapter |
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| Dark Portal Computer |
After having toured the halls, we tried our luck again with the Darkmoon Faire and this time the lines had reduced enough that we got in pretty quick. Inside were a number of carnival games such as gashapon machines, a fishable duck pond and adopt-a-plushy but these all had massive lines so we decided to wait for them to die down. Instead another huge batch of people were let in and the lines became longer, so we missed out.
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| Darkmoon Faire Gate |
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| N'Zoth carnival ride prop |
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| Duck Pond |
On the way out of the Faire we came across the Horde and Alliance Motorcyles:
After a run through the merch store we arrived outside in time for lunch and the March of the Murlocs - a gathering of all attendees with Murloc costumes:
According to the official Blizzard website, they had around 3500 Murlocs take place in the march.
We had banh mi's for lunch from one of the food trucks and then headed into the Arena to check out the ESports Overwatch competition, when we left it was 2-2 in the France vs South Korea competition.
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Meanwhile, the boys caught an uber back into LA and SoFi stadium to watch a Los Angeles Chargers and Arizona Cardinals NFL game, which finished 26-14 to the Cardinals.
SoFi Stadium was built between 2016 and 2020 on the site of the former Hollywood Park Raceway (1938-2013), which was demolished in 2014. It has a base capacity of 70,240, which can be expanded to over 100k and a translucent roof made of ETFE (Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene). The main feature is the infinity screen, which is an ovular double-sided 4k HDR video screen that weighs a ton and displays 80 million pixels.
After the game, rather than coming all the way back to Anaheim, the boys headed back to LAX where Tara and Brett were staying and had a sleep-over.
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