San Diego Comic-Con will stream Hall H panels, but not live

When Comic-Con International and Lionsgate announced last year the creation of a streaming video service called Comic-Con HQ, fans of the San Diego convention hoped the news would mean live access to some of the event’s most exclusive panels. On Tuesday, fans got an answer: The service will stream Hall H panels for people couldn’t get in, or aren’t even in the city, but it won’t be a live stream.

“We’re going to be working with every single studio, every single panel host to be able to take the content and put it on our platform,” said Seth Laderman, executive vice president and general manager of Comic-Con HQ, to SlashFilm. “We’re not going to be live streaming anything because we really don’t want to take away that experience of people who are the first to see and be there for it, but we can put things up shortly after.” 

Hall H’s panels are typically where the biggest announcements of the event take place. Often, exclusive clips from movies and shows are shown. The decision to stream the talks, even if delayed, appears to appease both fans that pay to go to the convention and wait in long lines as well as those who may not be able to afford the experience.

But whether or not said exclusive clips will be available on the app will be known on a case-by-case basis. 

“That is one of the options as well and we’re going to be working with all the studios and the panel hosts to figure out what would be the best way to handle that, because a lot of these studios have their marketing plans and how they want to control their assets,” Laderman said. “We’re really just here as a conduit to be able to help promote everyone, similar to what Comic-Con is, so whatever’s best for them will be good for us.”

Comic-Con HQ is a subscription-based app, though no prices have been released yet. In addition to the panels, it will feature original short videos, Comic-Con archive footage and movies and TV shows from Lionsgate and other studios. The service will officially launch on May 7. 

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