A lot of the high demand exclusives require tickets and people get there in the early morning to get a ticket for the right to buy the product.
In general, there aren't many free for alls for anything really popular.
For the panels, there are lines that start the night before and the real keeners stay in line the whole day even though you get a wrist band that night. Even with the wrist band, you still have to arrive early in the morning the next day to be in the line when they eventually let people into the applicable halls. It's one thing if the panel you want to see is early but if it's a later panel, people just tend to stay there the whole day.