Your Pre-Show Guide to BlizzCon 2018

We’re just one day away from BlizzCon 2018, which will be the most exciting event of the year for fans of Blizzard Entertainment and its games. This pre-show guide will give you an idea of what to expect from the convention as it unfolds tomorrow and Saturday.

What is BlizzCon?

BlizzCon is a two-day event that Blizzard describes as “a celebration of epic games and an epic community.” This year’s iteration is taking place at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California on November 2-3, and will attract roughly 35,000 diehard Blizzard fans from all around the world. The convention will feature new game announcements, playable demos of the newest content across all of Blizzard’s games, community contests, eSports tournaments, and in-depth developer panels. Complete details for the event can be found on the official BlizzCon website.

Watching Online

BlizzCon tickets sold out months ago, but Blizzard has done a great job of making the convention easy to follow from home. The opening ceremony and eSports competitions are broadcast on a variety of streaming platforms free of charge, while all remaining content can be viewed by purchasing a BlizzCon Virtual Ticket.

The Opening Ceremony

This will be a big draw for anyone who enjoys Blizzard’s games. At 11am PDT on November 2, Blizzard will hold an hour-long opening ceremony where new games and content will be announced. At last year’s opening ceremony, World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth and World of Warcraft Classic were announced, StarCraft II went free to play, and Moira was revealed for Overwatch. Even if you only follow one of Blizzard’s franchises, you’ll want to watch this on YouTube, Twitch, or the BlizzCon website.

We have some ideas of what Blizzard may announce during the opening ceremony. Be sure to check out our predictions feature to see what we think may be shown for Overwatch, Diablo, Heroes of the Storm, and more.

eSports Tournaments

BlizzCon hosts the final tournaments of the year for all of Blizzard’s competitive titles. The eSports tournaments that will be hosted this weekend at the event are as follows:

• World of Warcraft Arena World Championship

• Heroes of the Storm Global Championship Finals

• Overwatch World Cup 2018

• Hearthstone Global Games 2018

• StarCraft II World Championship Series Global Finals

• World of Warcraft Mythic Dungeon Invitational

In addition to the tournaments listed above, there will also be a StarCraft Remastered exhibition on Friday evening. The BlizzCon schedule has a great breakdown of when all of the eSports events will be taking place. If you want to watch any of these competitions and don’t have the Virtual Ticket, they will be streamed on the Twitch channels for World of Warcraft, StarCraft, Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm, and Hearthstone.

The BlizzCon Virtual Ticket

If you’re aren’t attending BlizzCon in person, the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket is the best way to follow everything that happens at the convention during the weekend. Purchasing it will give you access to a pre-show video series, live coverage from every stage at the convention center, the BlizzCon 2017 video archive, and in-game bonuses for Blizzard games. It also has a video on demand feature, which lets you watch previously aired content if you are unable to catch it live. It costs $50 in the US, but the price will vary in different territories.

In addition to all of the video content, Virtual Ticket holders will also have access to a playable demo of World of Warcraft Classic during BlizzCon. This demo will go live toward the end of the opening ceremony on November 2, and will be available to play until 10am PDT on November 8. Demos of new content used to be exclusive to BlizzCon attendees, so this is a pretty neat bonus for those who decide to pick up the Virtual Ticket.

The Closing Festivities

As BlizzCon begins to wind down, at 7:30pm PDT on November 3, Blizzard will bid con-goers farewell and recap the most exciting moments of the weekend. After that, attendees and Virtual Ticket holders will be able to watch live music performances by Train, Lindsey Stirling, and Kristian Nairn, who is best known for playing Hodor in Game of Thrones.

This is the first time in the history of BlizzCon where musical guests will perform on different stages at the Anaheim Convention Center simultaneously. In previous years, bands such as Metallica, Blink 182, Linkin Park, and Tenacious D have performed on the convention’s main stage.

A Whirlwind Weekend

Whether you’ve been playing World of Warcraft since the game’s launch or just discovered Blizzard with Overwatch, you definitely need to follow BlizzCon 2018 this weekend. It is sure to be filled to the brim with exciting announcements, informative panels, and some of the craziest eSports matches you’ll ever see. Be sure to keep an eye on LoadingXP for coverage on breaking BlizzCon announcements, and once I return from the event, I’ll have impressions of everything I got to try on the show floor.