About a year ago, trying to decide on something momentous to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary, the Child Bride and I hit on the idea of going to Comic-Con. Not the one in Sydney but the granddaddy of all Comic-Cons in San Diego, California. The ticket-buying experience was in fact a complex and at times exasperating ballot and, on our actual wedding anniversary back in February, we were sitting up in bed at 2.30am with two laptops open, waiting for one or the other to tell us we had tickets.

There were 110,000 tickets for about 1½ million potential buyers and one forum-haunting geek with too much time on his hands suggested the average American had a better chance of getting some form of cancer than getting a Comic-Con ticket. Encouraging thought and I'm glad we got the tickets.

Which meant that, on July 9, we were standing outside the San Diego Convention Centre. Nervous, excited and with no idea of what to expect, we had massive Comic-Con-supplied "back sacks" (everyone gets one) to carry home the loot, water bottles on our belts, Le Snak bikkie and cheese packs in our bum bags for sustenance (don't laugh), and a moderate wad of greenbacks to pay for anything we simply could not do without.

It helps to understand at this point that the San Diego Convention Centre is big. Well, actually, it is huge. Close to four city blocks long and one block wide, it houses more than 5500 exhibitors, with stands for everyone from Diao Andrade's tiny Soul Geek.com, a geek online dating service ("we started in 2007 and so far we've had 30 geek weddings and a geek baby") to George Lucas's massive Lucas Film set-up. The only thing missing was the Millennium Falcon.

Can I tell you that after eight solid hours of walking, gawking and talking, we managed to cover only three-quarters of it and had seen none of the external displays? Good thing then we had tickets for two days.

So, what is Comic-Con? San Diego, the first of many, was started 44 years ago by a bunch of American comic-book collectors and enthusiasts who thought it would be great to get together for a swapmeet-cum-market-cum-showcase for their interest.

Like all good ideas, it grew and blossomed. Book publishers got involved, along with science-fiction and horror TV show producers. The game makers came in and Hollywood followed and, along with the big players, came the sideshows - costumes and props for cosplay (that's costume-play for the non-geeks), costume jewellery (fancy a faithful replica of Sauron's One Ring?), T-shirts with pop art references of all kinds, car stickers ("My Zombie Family Killed and Ate Your Stick Person Family"), games, books and, well, you think of anything with a sci-fi, pop culture, cartoon, cosplay or superhero reference and Comic-Con will most likely have it.

Even furniture for gamers courtesy of Geek Chic, a Seattle, Washington-based company that builds custom gaming tables and other pieces, with prices starting around $2000 and a delivery time of between eight and 12 months. Geeks have patience as well as money.

Comic-Con is famous (or should that be infamous?) for its queues. People line up for everything from the many panels that put famous people (actors, directors, writers, cartoonists, artists) in front of rooms full of adoring fans who queue for hours - some even sleeping in line overnight - to see them.

Even regular folk who just want to be in the hall have to queue. The online geek advisers suggest taking food and drink to avoid the lines at the concession stands and anyone wanting to buy Dr Who goodies had an hour's wait.

"The queue starts way back there," says a BBC America staffer pointing to a galaxy far, far away, "and ends right here to buy the merchandise."

There were even people holding signs to show, quite courteously, the ends of each queue. I kind of cheated by going to Tower of T-Shirts, where I bought three T's at a little less than the BBC wanted for its merchandise and with no waiting time.

Geeks, by the way, are friendly for the most part. A fellow Comic-Conian saw our Star Trek comm badges, introduced himself as a violinist with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra and invited us to a rendition of music from the famous TV series and the movies that went with it.

We wanted to go but had already signed-on for Nerd Night, a geek-in sponsored by the National Geographic TV channel and held on a vacant block not far from San Diego's famous Gaslamp District.

There was a trivia quest, a science guy who told us everything wrong factually and historically the with Jurassic World movie, a gut-wrenchingly funny taxidermist as the guest speaker (who knew dead cats could be so much fun?), pizza and tacos plus plenty of free locally brewed beer and Jamaican rum, which helped make the cat stuffer even funnier.

The really great thing about Comic-Con (and believe me, there are many great things) is that the entire city gets behind the Con. San Diego runs around the clock from the Wednesday preview night through to Monday morning.

There are more parties, premieres, recitals, panels and previews than you can shake a stick at, superheroes parade through the streets and eat breakfast at coffee shops, businesses give discounts to properly tagged Comic-Conners, movie tickets are hung from hotel doors, the streets are packed almost around the clock and the restaurants and bars open late.

We came out of the world premiere screening of Rogue, the director's cut of the latest X-Men movie, and at 11.30pm found a beaut Cajun meal at a Mexican restaurant. Walking back to the shuttle bus, The Flash pedalled past on a pedicab, passing another pedicab with the Game of Thrones' Iron Throne in place of its regular seat.

The hotels become part of the Comic-Con tidal wave too. Our digs, Doubletree in Mission Valley, pulled back the nightly tariff on a four-night stay, halved the valet parking rate, cut the wi-fi charge and threw-in breakfast as part of the deal.

For the record, we finished looking at Comic-Con on our second day there, spent way too much money, walked the soles not only off our shoes but also our feet and loved every minute of it.

We fell for the colour, the noise and the theatre of it all, the four-day festiveness, the amusing sight one morning of the God Squad marchers on one side of Fifth Avenue calling on all the nerds and geeks to repent and, on the other side of the street, a parade of geeks and nerds declaring that Damien has risen.

Seriously, you just had to be there.