Allow me to do a tortured sportsball metaphor.
There is the idea of floors and ceilings when it comes to drafting players (be it real-life or fantasy). A low-floor, high-ceiling player has a wide range of expected outcomes: you’re hoping for the best outcome, but know there’s a chance it can be the worst outcome. Conversely, a high-floor, low-ceiling player brings a narrower range of outcomes: you’re fine ruling the best outcome out if it means ruling the worst outcome out.
So what does that have to do with Paramount+ The Lodge? Well, following a spectacular 2023 debut and a solid follow-up in 2024, The Lodge planted its flag at San Diego Comic-Con 2025 as a reliable high-floor option. This year may not have had that extra gear to reach its 2023 heights, but with time being such a precious commodity at SDCC, something that’s basically a guaranteed good time (for a reasonable time investment), is more than fine by us.
The Lodge was again designed by 15|40 Productions — check out their appearance on the SDConCast! – so let’s see what they had in store for attendees this year.
Schedule & Reservations
A notable schedule shift this year was that hours for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday shifted from 12pm-10pm last year to 9am-7pm this year. Wednesday maintained its 6pm-10pm hours from last year, while Sunday opened an hour earlier at 9am but still closed at 7pm). By our count, this meant that, while the number of sessions across five days increased from 43 to 44 (thanks to that extra Sunday hour), the number of sessions AFTER the Exhibit Hall closed decreased from 12 to 3. As part of The Lodge’s previous appeal was its availability in the evenings (compared to most offsites), this was an unwelcome change.
Once again, free reservations for 50-minute sessions beginning at the top of each hour were available through Fever with at least two different ticket drops. The actual process of claiming tickets was very smooth… though, as always, there aren’t enough tickets to meet attendee demand. (As an aside, we understand SDCC plans are always in flux and it’s nice to have backup time slots (or to grab tickets for friends), but this is where we suggest The Lodge consider limiting the number of tickets a single account can get in future years so the wealth spreads around a bit more.)
Entering the Offsite
The Lodge again took over the Happy Does Bar on 340 5th Avenue, two blocks north of the Gaslamp Quarter arch. Thankfully, they have not messed much with the formula for ensuring attendees get as much time inside as possible. For those with reservations, the process remained as efficient as can be reasonably expected, with staff conducting bag check, ID check, and QR ticket scans well ahead of the actual entrance so that, when attendees got to the front of the line, they were immediately handed their badge and could enter instead of experiencing another bottleneck. High marks for figuring out this system in Year 1 and essentially leaving it alone since.
Areas & Activities
The Lodge definitely expanded its footprint this year, with the “straight ahead” section extending much further back than last year (the “to the left” section stayed the same size). We’re not sure if they increased the capacity per session to take advantage of the extra space and added seating, but we do know it was much easier this year to find a place to sit and relax with food and/or drink.
As you can see from the gallery above, the properties represented ran the gamut from Star Trek to a surprising amount of sports-theming (hence my tortured sports metaphor!).
This year went heavy on the photo ops and walkthroughs, along with a football throwing challenge. There was a lot to walk around and see, but, depending on your proclivity towards photo and video opportunities, there may not have been a lot to do.
Food & Drink
Ahhhh, free food and drink, music to SDCC attendee ears.
As always, each Lodge 21+ admission came with two complimentary drinks (insert Michael Fassbender “perfection” meme here). The main drink at the Landman-themed bar was served in a take-home mug, so hooray for combining swag and alcohol! A third drink was available via a passcode (“I Want to Nerd Out”) originating from the Paramount+ Nerd Out offsite behind the Omni. For the under-21 and non-alcohol crowd, there was a Lemon Free-zie slushie option.
Ticketed food from years past was phased out for passed chicken sliders and fries, as well as popcorn from the Pluto TV area (where the slushie machines were). None of the items will win any Michelin stars, but free is free, and as con attendees we love free food!
While theoretically bottomless, the slider and fries typically came out eight at a time on trays, and not as frequently as you may have wished. Combine that with dozens of famished Con attendees attracted to free food like moths to a flame as soon as the staff exited the kitchen, and it wasn’t always easy to get fed.
You could also grab a raspberry macaron at the NCIS station and a mocktail at the Star Trek station.
Swag
From what I could tell, there were three primary swag items that all attendees could obtain this year:
- Mug from ordering the Landman-themed drink. (You could also take a themed leather coaster with you.)
- Blood-splattered linen towel from the Dexter: Resurrection experience.
- Starfleet Academy tote bag from the Star Trek area.
None of the items felt cheap and it would definitely be a great bundle if you had the right timing to grab all items in a single session; however, we heard tales throughout the weekend of shortages or inconsistent availability for these items (e.g., mugs running low, towels being rationed out and made available randomly).
Additionally, randomly selected fans could register for and claim a property “deed” from the Fan Frontier Outpost as they exited The Lodge. Considering the pick-up spot replaced the redemption spot of the Paramount Passport scavenger hunt (which was absent this year), it was hard not to notice the clear downgrade in both the swag item (literally just a printout) and experiential aspect from one year to the next.
Finally, if there was any sort of secret pin hunt this year, I was not aware of it due to my constant TUNNEL VISION.
The Lodge once again was a victim of its own past success in this category. It’s the perennial SDCC conundrum: if something is highly desirable, it’s going to take up a lot of time, and the opposite holds true, as well. While the three main swag items were nothing to scoff at, after two years with customizable/unique options for physical swag — 2023 had the caricature stations and 2024 had the custom shirts — that were in such high demand that many attendees committed their entire Lodge session to waiting in a single line at the expense of doing anything else, the lack of a similar option in 2025 stood out. I refuse to count the Fan Frontier deed.
Closing Thoughts
The Lodge offers a laid-back atmosphere which is a welcome change of pace from the chaos that typically consumes the rest of the con. Unless they try to fix something that isn’t broken, you more or less know what to expect each year, which is absolutely a good thing!
In just three years, 15|40 has established Paramount+’s The Lodge as arguably THE anchor of the SDCC offsite scene; it feels pretty indispensable at this point, knock on wood. While this year lost some beloved elements from previous years, what remains is an impressive portfolio of favorable features: Food, drinks, swag, all for Free.99. Loading attendees in quickly. Having a larger space. Indoors. AIR CONDITIONING. If you have all that, you’d have to mess up really badly elsewhere for it to be a bad offsite (spoiler: they didn’t mess up).
As part of the bigger picture, we love to see how Paramount+ has been so invested in SDCC the past few years, with The Lodge as a big part of the playbook (see also the badge/lanyard sponsorships, hotel wraps, multiple panels, and the live Star Trek performances this year). In conclusion, we hope any and all San Diego Comic-Con 2026 plans — including whether to bring The Lodge again — are not adversely affected by the Paramount and Skydance merger. You leave The Lodge alone, David Ellison!!!
