BlizzCon sold out; additional conventions cannot be launched

If you had planned to spend the summer mowing lawns and scraping together enough dough to attend BlizzCon this fall, you're already too late. After going on sale this past Wednesday, all 20,000 tickets to the event were snatched up quickly. ZAM reports that the first batch of tickets on Wednesday were sold out in 23 minutes, and the second batch on Saturday in 28 minutes. The official Blizzard Store page simply notes now that "BlizzCon 2010 Tickets Currently Unavailable."

This is certainly no surprise considering that past BlizzCons proved to be one of the most popular conventions of the year, with ticket scalping at a premium. Currently, some desperate Blizzard fans are combing through eBay for scalped tickets, although high prices and Blizzard asking eBay to crack down on such sales make this a difficult alternative. Blizzard is also requiring photo ID this year to match tickets as a way to limit these transactions.

Fortunately, there is hope for Blizzard fans: they will once again offer virtual passes to the convention through DirecTV as a Pay Per View event available through satellite and multi-channel Internet stream. The virtual pass enables fans to watch all of the presentations and panels, as well as receive an exclusive in-game item, all for $39.95.