Comic-Con Museum: Pop-Up Batman Experience
The Comic-Con Museum is scheduled to open in San Diego’s Balboa Park in 2021. However, it is already hosting some exciting events that give us a taste of how awesome this museum could become. One such event was the Pop-Up Batman Experience held during Comic-Con 2019.
WEBSITE: https://comic-conmuseum.org/
Being home to the huge Comic-Con Convention every July, San Diego has become ground central for all things comic book related. This makes it a perfect place to locate the upcoming Comic-Con Museum in Balboa Park. While the museum does not formally open until 2021 there are already events being held on a regular basis. The Pop-Up Batman Experience was once such event and it was exciting to get to see how much progress had been made on the museum in a few short months.
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The Pop-Up Batman Experience was held all four days of Comic-Con 2019. The event ran from July 18 to July 21st and was free to the public.
We were expecting the crowds to be overwhelming. However, Balboa Park is about 2-miles uphill from the San Diego Convention Center. The exhibit was bust but not overwhelming. Much of this was due to the fact that the Comic-Con Museum will be huge. The exhibit spread over 3 floors with multiple activities.
The exhibit featured both props and memorabilia from the Batman movies and TV shows, as well as interactive exhibits. It really gave us an idea of how cool the Comic-Con Museum could become.
The entry level featured actual Batman costumes and vehicles. These were costumes for various incarnations of both Batman and the villains. The vehicles even included Penguin’s Duck Ride from the 1992 movie Batman Returns.
There was a special display of Batman comic covers that celebrated 80 years of Batman.
The interactive exhibits included the Rogue Gallery Rumble. This allowed users to punch a bag with a Batman villain with a back screen highlighting the blows in the style of the 1960s TV show.
There was also the Bat Cave portion where visitors could play a variety of historical Batman themed video games. We play enough video games at home so we did not feel the need to wait in line. The line was not bad, but it was probably the most popular portion of the exhibit.
We also did not try our the premiere attraction at the Pop-Up Batman Experience. This was the Dark Knight Dive. This experience combined virtual reality with a sky-diving chamber. It was located right outside the museum. Visitors dress up in a Batman suit, put on VR glasses and fly in a wind powered sky-diving structure.
The night before the launch of Comic-Con and the Pop-Up Batman Experience a major fundraiser was held for the Comic-Con Museum. Batman became the first character inducted into the Comic-Con Museum Character Hall of Fame.
In addition to the Pop-Up Batman Experience, the Comic-Con Museum also had an exhibit of costumes from the Her Universe Fashion Show. This fashion show is a regular feature of Comic-Con.
There was also an art class where you could learn to Paint Like Bob Ross. Bob Ross hosted the popular PBS show The Joy of Painting. Over 20 years aftyer bhis untimely death in 1995 he has become a very in vogue figure.
The Comic-Con Museum also has an ongoing free event called Cover Story which celebrates 509 years of Comic-Con. We covered this exhibit in our initial look at the Comic-Con Museum.
Overall the Pop-Up Batman Experience just confirmed our initial impression that the Comic-Con Museum will become a huge San Diego attraction. We look forward to seeing what is in store next.
