Comic-Con International 2012 took over the city of San Diego last week, drawing more than 130,000 patrons. It ran from July 12^th through July 15^th, with July 11^th as a bonus “preview night.” But people were lining up a lot earlier than that.

Seating 6,500, the infamous Hall H is where all the biggest panels take place. If you go to Comic-Con to see exclusive footage from the new Marvel Studios movie, the Firefly reunion or anything involving Mark Hamill, you’re going to Hall H. And that means you can expect to wait in line for a hell of a long time.

The first panel scheduled for Hall H this year was Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part II. Author Stephanie Meyer and the main cast of the movie were there. People go to Comic-Con for all kinds of reasons, but of all pop culture fans, Twilight fans (or “Twi-hards”) are among the most rabid. For a Thursday morning panel, people started lining up on Sunday.

By Tuesday, open-air tents had been set up outside Hall H, where the Twi-hards could get a little minimal shelter. At 9 AM, staffers were trying to re-organize the mob into a line. Somewhere in the process they tried to turn the line around, meaning the people in the front were now in the back. Bedlam ensued. People started running to avoid losing their place in line. The tents are on the corner of an intersection, and a 53-year-old woman named Gisela Gagliardi ran into the street and into the path of oncoming traffic. One driver saw her and stopped; another did not. Gisela tried to avoid the second car, tripped, and fell into the vehicle, sustaining massive head trauma. An ambulance took her to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Since the accident, at Comic-Con and all over the internet, reactions have been varied. They range from compassionate notes to Ms. Gagliardi’s family, to confused indifference, to cruel, anonymous troll humor. But everyone agrees that this was a tragic, needless, meaningless death.

There’s a stand-in-line, guard-your-turf aspect to Comic-Con that has reached insane levels in recent years. Even away from the huge events, it’s hard to avoid it completely. In a modestly-attended panel geared towards comic professionals, I was about to sit down when another guy ran up from the back and swung his backpack between the chair and me, claiming the seat as his. This was in a room with a 280-person capacity, with barely 100 people there. I worked it out with the guy, but I confess to being pretty irritated, and he didn’t seem to understand why. It’s Comic-Con, right? You snooze, you lose.

This mentality led to national news at Comic-Con 2010. Before the Hall H panel for Seth Rogan’s Paul, one patron stabbed another in the eye with a pen in a seating dispute. The man was arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon. You can still find photos of him being led away in handcuffs and a Harry Potter t-shirt, head hung in shame.

This obviously sounds ridiculous, but packing sleeping bags and lawn chairs, sleeping outdoors and wearing the same clothes for three days to hold your place in line can make a seat seem a lot more valuable than it is, especially if somebody takes it. Which brings me to my point: When sheer attendance becomes this problematic, are days-long lines still the best option? Why not online ticketing, or a priority checklist at registration? There have to be other options, ones that will help diffuse the crazy.

Another option that’s been thrown around for years is moving Comic-Con. That seems unlikely as Comic-Con is contractually obligated to stay at San Diego through 2015, and the Convention Center is supposedly due for a significant expansion. But now rumors are circulating that Comic-Con may become a bi-annual event, with the second convention happening in Anaheim. Whatever the solution, I met a lot of long-time Comic-Con patrons at this year’s Con, and every one of them agrees: This is crazy, and something’s gotta give.