Ozzy Osbourne to Play Live at BlizzCon Closing Ceremonies

Blizzard fans will be storming into Anaheim on August 21 - 22 for BlizzCon 2009, a convention for enthusiasts of Warcraft®, Starcraft®, and Diablo®. The Anaheim Convention center will host the two day event, a thrilling weekend of entertainment, contests, discussion panels, hands-on playtime with upcoming games, and tournaments where top players from around the world will show off their gaming skills.

My son, an avid World of Warcraft® player for the last 5 years, has tried to get tickets to this wildly popular convention for the last two years. The tickets sell out online in minutes and there is a huge internet server traffic jam that causes glitches, such as tickets that are in the cart disappearing as if plucked out by other frenzied gamers. Comments on the website's forums abound as those who get tickets gloat and those who missed out once again add their sour grapes to the cornucopia of complaints.

To quell the cyber mobs, Blizzard has worked hard to make the ticket sales fair, including using a lottery system for blocks of tickets made available after internet ticket sales have closed. It's truly the luck of the draw, as some gamers get tickets for the 2nd or 3rd year in a row, and other gamers who have never been walk away empty handed. My son laments his bad luck, but is looking forward to being there in spirit as he tunes into the Internet stream that weekend.

Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. in Irvine has not yet found a way to accommodate the thousands of fans world wide who would spend big bucks to attend a BlizzCon, but the best idea they've come up with this year is to charge a small fee for 18 hours of streaming video from the Anaheim Convention Center. The usual deal with DirectTV's live Pay Per View returns this year as well. The cost is $39.95 and includes the coveted in-game pet for World of Warcraft®, Grunty the Murloc Marine. You might say $40 isn't a small fee, but compared to the $100 per person ticket price along with hotel accommodation, food, transportation, and the must-have souvenir costs, it's a steal.

BlizzCon 2009 will feature Ozzy Osbourne in concert, live at the Anaheim Convention Center, for the closing ceremonies on August 22. Osbourne started his career as the lead singer for Black Sabbath. It's a career that has spanned 4 decades and he'll be as popular on stage with the youngest of the BlizzCon attendees as he is with the oldest. This is the second time Ozzy will be working with Blizzard Entertainment. He recently starred in a World of Warcraft® TV commercial, which you can see HERE.

According to Blizzard Entertainment, "Ozzy will unleash a thunderous spectacle of rock to put the Lich King in his place and cement his own title as the one true Prince of Darkness." Warcraft fans know what that means and Ozzy's finale at BlizzCon 2009 is bound to be the perfect ending to the perfect gamers weekend.

Sources:
Personal Experience
BlizzCon