The most common sentiment around San Diego Comic-Con we heard this year was, “This was the best year since the pandemic.” This year truly had it all — great panels, great offsites, and great exclusives, with something for everyone.
For this year’s The Shruggie Awards (which, despite the name, is not celebrating the “wtf-ness” of the convention, though there’s plenty of that to go around as well!), you picked the best of (and one of the worst) things about this year’s con. And now, we’ve tallied your votes, and we’re excited to announce the winners.
The Best Booth at San Diego Comic-Con 2025: LEGO
While we loved LEGO’s Blockbuster booth a few years ago, this year they really stole the show with their best booth yet — LEGO-Con. The booth transformed into a mini version of San Diego Comic-Con itself, with a LEGO replica of the San Diego Convention Center. Attendees could even build their own LEGO-sized booths, to be placed on the “exhibit floor”. This felt like a true love letter to the convention itself in a way that underscored how LEGO really “got it”. It’s going to be hard to top this in future years, but we’re excited to see LEGO try.
The Best Exclusive at San Diego Comic-Con 2025: Butts on Things Pins
Comic-Con attendees like big butts and they cannot lie. Butts on Things — the cheeky brand from artist and illustrator Brian Cook, who adds butts to both everyday items as well as pop culture icons — has quickly become one of our (and clearly your) favorite stops on the show floor. This year, Brian added his signature touch to everything from those weird-bunny-toys-I’m-not-allowed-to-say-by-name (bite me, evil toy corporation!), to Stitch, to Superman, to diet cokes, and beyond — finding a great balance between limited true-exclusives at the show to larger debuts, so everyone who wanted a cheeky souvenir of their con could take home a little extra junk in their trunk. There was always a line at “The Butt Booth” and it’s so very deserved.
The Best Panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2025: NCIS: Tony & Ziva
Our readers crowned NCIS: Tony & Ziva as the best panel at SDCC 2025. Both Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo were on hand, delivering the kind of warmth, banter, and chemistry that made fans fall in love with their characters in the first place. Fans have waited 12 years for another outing with the two characters, and were treated to a fun panel with good swag (“TIVA Forever” hats). Sometimes, serving your passionate fanbase matters more than making big, splashy Hall H announcements.
The Best Panelist at San Diego Comic-Con 2025: Michael Weatherly
If NCIS: Tony & Ziva was the best panel, then it only makes sense that it was in large part due to its great panelists — and Michael Weatherly is taking the crown for 2025. He pulled double duty this year, representing the show on both its own panel, as well as TV Guide’s annual “Fan Favorites” panel (alongside co-star Cote de Pablo). Whether he was cracking jokes, sharing behind-the-scenes stories, or leaning into the playful dynamic that defined Tony DiNozzo, Michael kept the room engaged from start to finish. His ability to balance humor with heartfelt moments reminded fans why they’ve stayed loyal to him for over a decade — and proved that sometimes the most memorable moments come from a performer simply enjoying the ride alongside the people who love their work.
The Best Offsite at San Diego Comic-Con 2025: Hulu’s King of the Hill
After two successful years of Hulu Animayhem, this year the streamer chose to focus on just one property — King of the Hill. Fans clearly approved of their trip to Arlen, Texas, where they could play some fun, quick games for fun swag (and more on that in a moment), customize swag (hats with show-themed patches), and cool down with some canned Alamo water and a quick bite to eat. We love that Hulu’s offsite has become an annual tradition at the con, and unlike some of its neighbors (looking at you, Abbott), this was a great way to spend part of your day at the con that was worth the time investment.
The Best Party at San Diego Comic-Con 2025: XLE Productions’ “Ready Party One”
Even with just one night on the calendar this year, XLE Productions proved that their Ready Party One can still be one of the most accessible and unforgettable events of San Diego Comic-Con. The evening delivered the perfect mix of immersive decor, photo opportunities, lively performances, and surprise celebrity appearances — all without the impossible-to-crack guest lists and invites that define so many other Comic-Con parties. For fans looking for a big night out at the con without jumping through any hoops, Ready Party One once again set the standard.
The Best Free Swag at San Diego Comic-Con 2025: Hulu’s King of the Hill Hats, Aprons, Etc.
One of the easiest ways to be the best offsite… is to offer some of the best swag.
Hulu’s King of the Hill delivered on that front, seeming to pull from some of the biggest swag hits of last year. Everyone wanted The Bear aprons — so they offered King of the Hill aprons. Everyone loved the Abbott Elementary customized hats with patches — so they brought those hats over to King of the Hill.
Plus, with the addition of koozies, canned Alamo water, and free food (that was actually delicious!), no one walked out of King of the Hill empty-handed or feeling like they didn’t get something worthy of the time investment. This is how you do swag.
The Best Wrap at San Diego Comic-Con 2025: FX’s Alien: Earth (Hilton Bayfront)
We added a new award this year, for best wrap — to celebrate the landscapes that help make Comic-Con feel like it extends far beyond the San Diego Convention Center. And the winner of that new award is none other than FX and their Alien: Earth wrap. FX has long staked its claim on the Hilton Bayfront, delivering plenty of creepy, sometimes gross, wraps to tower over the con. This year featured a Xenomorph, peering down at San Diego Comic-Con.
The Hilton Bayfront is the original (dating back to 2010 with Scott Pilgrim) home of the Comic-Con wrap, and it remains possibly the most iconic. Alien: Earth was a great new addition to that legacy, and fans were clearly into it.
The Most ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Thing About San Diego Comic-Con 2025: Long waits at offsites
For as much as we love offsites, this year brought back a trend we had sort of hoped was in the past: Very long waits at offsites. We heard reports all week of lines at Abbott Elementary and Percy Jackson with waits exceeding up to 8 hours, and in our opinion, no offsite — no matter how fun — is worth that. Adult Swim and the Petco Interactive Zone also featured very long lines throughout the week, as did several others.
Most of the offsites that topped the Shruggie’s offered reservations, from Paramount+’s The Lodge to Peacemaker‘s Peacefest to Shudder’s Clown in a Cornfield to Magic the Gathering to Brawl Stars. While none of those were without their issues (mostly Peacefest’s crashed website), once on-site, those who had scored reservations enjoyed a relatively painless experience, able to enjoy a fun experience and then move on with their day without investing hours of their limited time at the con.
Of course, the flipside of that is that there simply is never enough inventory for everyone who wants to attend, and we hear stories every year from those who have never been able to get a reservation.
In our opinions, there truly is no perfect way to do offsites — no matter what a company does, there are going to be those who can’t score reservations or get in, and who feel left out. But if we were planning how to do an offsite, here would be our recommendations:
- Offer reservations. People clearly like reservations, and it offers a much better overall attendee experience and satisfaction level.
- But also offer standby for those who weren’t able to get reservations. However, plan this into your throughput — make sure you leave a certain number of space available specifically for standby.
- Limit reservations. People tend to grab as many timeslots as possible (in part because no one really knows their Comic-Con schedule until closer to the con, but in part as well because people just like to grab things). But if we were to limit it to everyone being able to grab, let’s say, up to four tickets for only one timeslot, that would allow for more people to get in. We heard reports of some who grabbed 30+ reservations for The Lodge, and there’s just absolutely no valid excuse for that.
- Everyone wants to bring a buddy. Allow people to grab at least two, and preferably four, tickets at once for the timeslot. For those offsites that did offer reservations but only for one ticket at a time, it made it nearly impossible to score tickets for an entire group for the same timeslot.
- Announce a date and time for when tickets launch — but actually mean it. Or alternatively, I’m a fan of a lottery, but not everyone is.
- We were big fans of Brawl Stars requiring a small, paid fee for their reservations, and it being a matched donation. This hopefully kept people from grabbing tons of tickets, and the money was well spent (and only a few bucks) since it went to charity. Would love to see more of this in the future.
That’s just my two cents — you likely have another opinion, as offsites and how to handle them remain one of the biggest, most controversial takes in the world of San Diego Comic-Con.
But do you know what isn’t a hot take? That waiting eight hours for an offsite isn’t fun. So let’s try to move away from that, studios. Particularly when the experience (like Abbott) leaves a lot to be desired, and features more lines within. Do better.
