As we all know, BlizzCon 09, a celebration of all things Blizzard, is going to be held on August 21-22 in the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California. We can now announce that tickets for the event will go on sale on May 16th, with a second batch released a couple of weeks later on May 30th for those who missed out in the initial round.

While there's no word yet on an Australian pay-per-view provider, we can confirm that DirecTV in the US will be hosting the event - and, for the first time ever - there will be a pay-per-view streaming broadcast of the event available online.

If you're a fan of Warcraft, Diablo, StarCraft or World of Warcraft, this is an event definitely worth looking into.

Mike Morhaime, CEO and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment explains:

“BlizzCon always offers us a great chance to meet players and celebrate our shared passion for gaming. We look forward to delivering another entertaining and memorable experience to all attendees and to those joining us from home.”

Just like it has in previous years, BlizzCon 2009 offers a wide variety of activities over the two days - discussion panels, hands-on time with upcoming games, contests, tournaments and more.


Diablo III, StarCraft II, World of Warcraft
Tickets this year are US$125 (an increase of 25% on last year's price), and it looks like they've taken note of the issues many gamers reported last year when trying to buy tickets. This year, the purchase process has been streamlined, and the Blizzard Store has been updated to include a first-come, first-served queue system as well as a fixed time limit for completing your purchase. Things are even easier if you have a battle.net account, too!

Mini-Tyrael, free to attendees of the 2008 Worldwide Invitational

If you're an existing DIRECTV customer in the US, you'll be able to check out the Pay Per View event in 2009, for US$39.95 - that's a minimum of eight hours of live HD coverage from the show floor for both days of the convention, which will include exclusive demos, interviews, and other exciting stuff.

...if you're not in the right geographical location for that, however, you can also access the Pay Per View internet stream, also available for US$39.95 (pricing may vary by region). If you get the DirecTV televised event, you'll get the Internet stream thrown in for free, so you can choose which format you'd like to watch in.

And, as always, if you order the event in either format, you'll receive this year's BlizzCon 09-exclusive World of Warcraft in-game item, to be revealed closer to the actual date.

Stay tuned for more details about BlizzCon 09 as it draws ever-closer - we'll have further details about the show, plus (hopefully!) more information about Australian viewing options, when we get a little closer to August.