BlizzCon is the official convention for Blizzard, the company behind the 11 million strong World of Warcaft, and games like StarCraft and Diablo. The dates and location were just announced for the 2009 convention, and fans are already salivating.
There are conventions happening every single weekend of the year across the world, whether they're for anime, Star Trek, Star Wars, comic books, or gaming. While some conventions take place on college campuses with just a few hundred people, other cons have gotten so famous and popular that getting tickets is almost impossible. BlizzCon is one of those conventions.
Blizzard Entertainment (the company behind World of Warcraft, Diablo, and StarCraft) just recently announced the dates and location for their 2009 BlizzCon convention. It will be held at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California on Friday, August 21 and Saturday, August 22. Tickets are not yet available, but one can only hope that getting them will go a little smoother than last year. (In case you didn't hear about last year, here's the short version of the disaster: the website crashed under the traffic, and as a result Blizzard offered up 3,000 extra tickets to smooth things over, but in a lottery system.)
BlizzCon is considered THE convention for World of Warcraft (WoW) players in particular. While other cons offer MMORPG programming (and even some WoW specific events), BlizzCon is run by Blizzard itself (not fans), thereby offering content and events that no other convention could hope to top. For example, BlizzCon was offering exclusive in-game WoW items to attendees in 2008 (which some think is what exacerbated the mad rush for tickets).
BlizzCon 2009 is the fourth iteration of BlizzCon, and one hopes they will have ironed out some of these kinks. According to the official press release, BlizzCon activities include:
- Hands-on play time with upcoming Blizzard Entertainment games
- Discussion panels with Blizzard Entertainment developers
- Competitive and casual tournaments for players to showcase their talents
- Community contests with great prizes
- Commemorative merchandise based on Blizzard Entertainment’s game universes
- A silent auction
- More exciting activities and attractions to be announced
One of the highlights of the convention is the BlizzCon costume contest, which invites the makers of some of the most incredible Blizzard game costumes to strut their stuff in front of a huge audience and plenty of cameras. You can check out past footage from these contests at the BlizzCon official website, or by doing a quick search on YouTube. Just as an example: the winner for 2008 was Amanda Hosler's Draenei costume (she "rode in" on a turtle mount).The video of Amanda on her turtle mount is impressive to say the least.