BlizzCon 2026 Schedule: All 7 Stages and Free Streams

BlizzCon sold out, and the selling happened in 2025. Passes went on sale in two November windows — an early bird run from Friday, November 7 to Sunday, November 9, then a standard sale opening Tuesday, November 18 — and both are gone. Blizzard's own FAQ now answers "when will BlizzCon Passes go on sale" in the past tense: passes have all been claimed.

None of which matters as much as it used to, because almost the whole show streams free.

Blizzard has published the session-level schedule, and the shape of it is worth stating up front. Seven stages, two days, 75 distinct scheduled sessions. Exactly two of those sessions carry an IN-ROOM EXPERIENCE ONLY tag. Blizzard's own promise for the rest is the Opening Ceremony, major panels and esports, free on YouTube, Twitch and Battle.net — with programming varying by channel rather than one feed carrying all seven stages.

Here is the whole thing, in the show's own time zone, plus the parts you have to plan around.

One caveat that belongs at the top rather than buried: Blizzard's Know Before You Go post says in as many words that "times and programming are subject to change" and tells attendees to check back after the Opening Ceremony for the full updated schedule. (Separately, it says a few areas of the show floor map are still under wraps until then.) Treat everything below as the published plan on September 2, not a contract.

The dates, the hours and the address

Two numbers worth putting side by side before the tables. Show hours start at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday. The first stage session on Saturday is the Opening Ceremony at 10:30 a.m. That first ninety minutes is show floor, queues and the Darkmoon Faire — there is nothing scheduled on any stage. Sunday is the opposite: two stages are already running at 9:00 a.m. sharp.

Saturday, September 12 — the full schedule

The Opening Ceremony runs 10:30 a.m. – 11:45 a.m. PDT and is simulcast to six of Saturday's seven stages. The exception is the Diablo Stage, which has nothing on its schedule until the all-day Immortal Event starts at 11:45 a.m., the minute the ceremony ends.

Saturday panels — Main Stage and Legends Stage

The first head-on collision of the weekend happens 15 minutes after the Opening Ceremony wraps: World of Warcraft: What's Next on the Main Stage and the Overwatch Dev Livestream on the Legends Stage occupy the same 12:00 – 12:45 p.m. slot. If you play both, one of them is a VOD.

Saturday esports and the Diablo Stage

Note the last row on the World of Warcraft Stage. The MDI Championship Match is scheduled 5:30 p.m. – 7:15 p.m., which finishes 15 minutes after the posted 7:00 p.m. close of show hours. Blizzard publishes both figures; it does not reconcile them. If you are in the room for the trophy, budget for the overrun.

BlizzCon has run a parallel broadcast operation for years — this is the All Access set from BlizzCon 2017. In 2026 the broadcast is the free product rather than the paid one. Photo: tofuprod via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.

Sunday, September 13 — the full schedule

Sunday has no opening ceremony, more sessions than Saturday, and the two things you cannot watch from home. The row counts are 38 for Saturday and 42 for Sunday; Saturday's 38 collapse to 33 distinct sessions once you count the simulcast Opening Ceremony once instead of six times, which is where the 75 figure comes from.

Sunday panels — Main Stage and Legends Stage

Sunday esports and the Diablo Stage

Sunday afternoon stacks the weekend's three championship deciders and a Classic Cup exhibition across four stages. The Hearthstone final runs 1:00 – 2:45 p.m., the Overwatch World Cup final 2:45 – 4:45 p.m., the StarCraft Remastered legacy match 3:15 – 4:45 p.m., and the AWC championship match 5:00 – 6:30 p.m. The Hearthstone final ends at the exact minute the Overwatch final starts, the Overwatch final and the StarCraft Remastered match overlap for 90 minutes, and the AWC championship begins 15 minutes after the last of the three ends. Watched back to back, that is five and a half hours of stage matches.

One row is worth flagging for reasons outside Blizzard's own universe. "30 Years of Battle.net with Special Guest CD Projekt Red" (Legends Stage, Sunday 9:30 a.m.) is the only session on the published schedule that names CD PROJEKT RED, and no session title mentions The Witcher at all. That is notable because CD PROJEKT RED confirmed at gamescom that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered launches on Battle.net on September 29 under a new partnership with Blizzard, and said the Diablo IV skin tied to buying Songs of the Past there would get its details when the studio attends BlizzCon. Our breakdown of who gets the free Witcher 3 upgrade has the platform list. What actually gets said in that 60-minute slot is unknown until it happens.

The two sessions you cannot watch from home

Of the 75 scheduled sessions, two are tagged IN-ROOM EXPERIENCE ONLY on Blizzard's schedule, and both are music.

Blizzard's viewership guide states the general rule plainly — musical performances will not be livestreamed and are exclusive to in-person attendees — and its viewership FAQ goes further on the closing act specifically: the Sunday performance can only be experienced in person, and will not be livestreamed or recorded. So this is not a "wait for the VOD" situation for the LE SSERAFIM set.

Nothing else on the two tables above carries an in-room-only tag — but note that Blizzard publishes no session-by-session list of what streams, so "not tagged in-room-only" is not the same as "confirmed on a channel".

Where the free stream lives

There is no virtual ticket in 2026. Blizzard's line is that BlizzCon 2026 will be livestreamed free for everyone, covering the Opening Ceremony, major panels and esports, with programming varying by channel — which is the important qualifier. Seven stages do not fit down one pipe.

The three official starting points:

• YouTube
• Twitch
• Battle.net

Esports is the case where the channel matters most. Blizzard's own answer to "where can I watch esports matches" is that all esports matches stream on their franchise channels rather than a single BlizzCon feed, with the full channel list published on the viewership guide and the schedule page. If you are chasing the Overwatch World Cup final or the AWC championship match specifically, go to the franchise channel, not the main BlizzCon one.

The Opening Ceremony in your time zone

Anaheim is on Pacific Daylight Time in September, so the show runs at UTC−7. The Opening Ceremony at 10:30 a.m. PDT is 17:30 UTC.

For Europe the Opening Ceremony is a comfortable evening. For Japan and Australia it is the small hours of Sunday morning, and Sunday's Main Stage block lands overnight into Monday.

Watch-time rewards, game by game

The thing that makes the free stream more than a free stream. Blizzard is running watch-time drops across six games, and the terms differ per game — different platforms, different windows, different thresholds. Link your Twitch or YouTube account to your Battle.net account before you start watching; time accrued on an unlinked account does not count.

Two structural details in there that are easy to miss. The World of Warcraft window is asymmetric — Twitch counts from September 12 all the way to September 27, YouTube only across the two show days. If you want the 12-hour mount-and-toy tier, Twitch is the only realistic route. And the Diablo IV, Heroes of the Storm and StarCraft rewards are Twitch-only; watching those on YouTube earns you nothing.

Attendees do not have to grind any of it. Anyone who links a BlizzCon Pass to a Battle.net account by September 18 receives the full set automatically, delivered no later than September 28.

Community Night on Saturday runs contests in Art, Cosplay, Short Film and Talent. Pictured: cosplay at BlizzCon 2016. Photo: Dutch Boyd via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

The passes are gone. Here is what they cost.

BlizzCon 2026 dropped the tiered-ticket model — Blizzard's FAQ describes it as "one universal experience" — so there was a single pass plus two optional add-ons. All three are marked SOLD OUT on the passes page.

The early bird window was short: three days, November 7 to November 9, 2025, and the $40 saving evaporated with it. Standard passes opened November 18 and are now gone too.

The one remaining official route is Tixr's resale market, which Blizzard says opened in December 2025 and caps resale prices at the original price paid, limited to residents of the United States, Canada and the European Union. Both add-ons are explicitly non-resellable — sales final — so Charity Night and Darkmoon Faire After Hours are genuinely closed.

If you hold a pass and cannot go, note the deadline: Blizzard's passes page says transfers must reach their final recipient before Tuesday, September 8, and a pass can only be transferred once.

The times that are not on the stage schedule

The stage schedule is not the whole clock. These come off Blizzard's Know Before You Go post and are the ones that decide your morning.

Registration opening on Friday afternoon, the day before the show, is the single most useful line in that table. Same logic as picking up a Gen Con badge a day early: the queue you skip on Saturday morning is worth more than the Friday evening you spend.

Four other rules worth knowing before you go:

• Opening Ceremony seating is first-come, first-served. Doors open at 9:00 a.m. for a 10:30 a.m. start. Miss a seat in Hall D and Blizzard directs you to one of the stages and viewing locations elsewhere in the building.
• BlizzCon is cashless. Cards or mobile payment for merch, food, everything.
• Under-7s are not admitted at all, and anyone under 18 needs an accompanying adult. Some content is rated Mature.
• No alcohol is served. You can bring an empty plastic or insulated bottle in.

This year's March of the Murlocs colour is emerald green, which is the kind of detail that is trivial right up until you are the only person in blue.

The Grand Plaza approach, where the security checkpoints and staging areas open at 6:00 a.m. on both show days. Photo: Twisted Nether via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

What is not published yet

Four gaps as of September 2, stated as gaps rather than guesses:

• Parts of the floor map are deliberately withheld. Blizzard's own words: a few areas are still under wraps, with the full map to be revealed after the Opening Ceremony.
• The full esports channel list. The viewership FAQ promises it on the viewership guide and schedule pages; the per-franchise channels are not all enumerated there yet.
• What the Diablo Stage's "Immortal Event" actually is. It occupies 11:45 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. on Saturday and 11:15 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. on Sunday — the longest single blocks on the schedule — with no description attached.
• Everything that gets announced. Six Main Stage slots across the weekend are titled "What's Next" or "Deep Dive", covering World of Warcraft, Diablo IV and Overwatch. Blizzard's schedule gives each a one-line description and no more — the Overwatch slot promises "the creation of a new Hero", the Diablo IV slot "previews of upcoming content", the Saturday WoW slot "a first look at the next chapter of Azeroth". No name, number or date attaches to any of it yet, and any article claiming otherwise before September 12 is guessing.

Quick Action Checklist

• Link your Twitch or YouTube account to Battle.net before you start watching. Unlinked watch time does not count toward drops.
• Pick a platform per game. Diablo IV, Heroes of the Storm and StarCraft rewards are Twitch-only. World of Warcraft's Twitch window runs to September 27; its YouTube window is the two show days only.
• Set one alarm: Saturday, 10:30 a.m. PDT. That is 6:30 p.m. in London, 7:30 p.m. in Berlin, and 3:30 a.m. Sunday in Sydney.
• For esports, go to the franchise channel, not the main BlizzCon feed — Blizzard streams matches on their own channels.
• Do not wait up for the music. Both the Yoasobi halftime show and the LE SSERAFIM closing set are in-room only, and Blizzard says the closing performance will not be recorded either.
• Holding a pass you cannot use? Transfer it before Tuesday, September 8. One transfer per pass, and add-ons cannot be resold.
• Going in person? Register Friday afternoon, between 1:00 and 9:00 p.m. in Hall E, and skip the Saturday queue.
• Link your pass to Battle.net by September 18 or the in-game goodies do not arrive.
• Planning a convention year rather than one show? Our PAX West 2026 badge and hours breakdown and the Tokyo Game Show 2026 ticket guide cover the September run, and there is more in the Gaming Events archive and across the Mythras blog.