BlizzCon 2009

BlizzCon 2009 was announced on 17 February 2009 and took place at the Anaheim Convention Center on August 21-22. The event's space was expanded from three convention halls to four. There were more than 20,000 people who attended.

Summary

 * Warcraft
 * World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is the next expansion.
 * Reveal trailer


 * Diablo
 * Diablo III fourth playable class revealed: Monk.

Activities

 * 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
 * The contests and rules were announced on via a forum announcement on 30 June 2009 Blue Post - Bashiok. The direct link page is here.
 * Commemorative merchandise based on Blizzard Entertainment’s game universes
 * A silent auction
 * Detailed information about Battle.net 2.0
 * More exciting activities and attractions to be announced
 * Experience 20 minutes of:
 * the Goblin and Worgen starting areas of the new Cataclysm expansion
 * Diablo 3, including the new Monk class
 * StarCraft 2 Single Player Campaign
 * Closing Ceremony headlined by Ozzy Osbourne! Blue Post - Nethaera

Tickets

 * $125.00 USD per ticket (up from BlizzCon 2008, was $100.00 USD)
 * This year introduced a new ticket purchasing system via a queue. Rather than allow users to flood the server with one massive purchase period, the servers placed customers in a virtual line, checking each one out in order.
 * Sold in two batches:
 * Saturday, May 16th, 2009 at 10:00am Pacific Time (California) (Sold out in 30 minutes)
 * Saturday, May 30th, 2009 at 10:00am Pacific Time (California) (Sold out in 30 minutes)
 * Barcodes for tickets began being delivered via e-mail on 30 July 2009
 * Several community websites have had contests to win tickets.
 * Wowpedia
 * WoWInterface
 * WoWHead
 * SteelSeries-J!nx-SwagDog-BradyGames-UpperDeck Blue Post - Bashiok
 * Razer USA Ltd.
 * Alienware/Dell
 * nVidia
 * On a different note, a drawing was to be held to allow 200 people to purchase a ticket to the Laguna Art Museum's Blizzard exhibit. Included with the purchase of the ticket was a BlizzCon ticket
 * Laguna Art Museum Blue Post - Nethaera

Swag/Goodie Bag
Images and information can be found here.
 * Grunty, the Murloc Space Marine (video)
 * StarCraft II Jim Raynor vinyl noobz
 * World of Warcraft Magazine promotional booklet
 * Algalon bookmark
 * BlizzCon themed Authenticator
 * BlizzCon Souvenir Program Ticket (Redeem After Opening Ceremony)
 * a two-for-one admission coupon to the Laguna Art Museum's World of Warcraft: Emergent Media Phenomenon exhibit
 * BlizzCon Instant Hand Sanitizer (2.0 fl. oz.)
 * Brady Games Bookmark/Quest Catch Me If You Can
 * Find Brady Mercantile, use map to find five (5) treasures, and return to Brady.
 * BlizzCon Schedule/Map Foldout
 * Promos for Nvidia, Intel, Laguna Art Museum, Zipzoomfly, SteelSeries, Razer, Jinx and 3point.

Coverage

 * DirectTV covered BlizzCon via a Pay-Per-View event as well as a streaming internet video of the same feed. Price is $39.95 USD, and includes code for Grunty.
 * The streaming internet video was provided in HD Blue Post - Eyonix, including the following coverage items:
 * Exclusive interviews and commentary
 * Main stage presentations including opening ceremony
 * Tournament coverage and team highlights
 * Rebroadcasting of coverage directly following the live stream (so if you miss out on the first couple hours, don't stress!)
 * The Warcraft III and Starcraft tournaments were available for free. However, in order to get the highlights, the panels, and the full coverage, the DirectTV stream is the only option. Blue Post Europe - Slorkuz
 * You can also find coverage of the event on several websites:
 * Azzor.com
 * MMO Champion
 * WoW.com
 * Read the full BlizzCon 2009 Day 1 summary.