Will Comic-Con Leave San Diego?
We know that there has always been a chance Comic-Con could end up leaving San Diego. After last year's Comic-Con there was talk of bring the mega Geek Convention to Los Angeles or Las Vegas. Comic-Con's contract with San Diego expires in 2012, and after that it could end up leaving. As of right now Anaheim is writing up a business proposal to bring the convention to their neck of the woods.
I hope not, I love going to San Diego for the Con, I love the city vibe and the feel of it. San Diego is just a very fun and cool place to be. Comic-Con has been in San Diego from the beginning and it should stay that way. But that's just me. There's the whole business side of the convention that needs to be looked at. For example, this years Comic-Con is almost sold out, the four day passes sold out months ago! With that and the limited number of hotel rooms, and exhibition space, this convention is getting very tight.
San Diego is trying to keep Comic-Con in the town and to help move that forward the hotels in the area are offering up more rooms for the convention. Doubling the amount from 7,000 to 14,000. Then the hotels in the area like the Manchester Grand Hyatt, San Diego Marriott and Hilton San Diego Bayfront — have committed to providing roughly 300,000 square feet of their meeting space free of charge in 2013 through 2015. They hope that by doing this their contract will be extended through 2015. They have even proposed an extension of the convention center that will add on another 1.27 million square feet, but there's no guarantee that will even happen.
Sandra Moreno, the center’s executive vice president of sales and marketing had this to say:
Since expansion is a process we’re all exploring, it would be a shame for an organization that’s had so much success over the last 40 years to jump and leave. I’m hopeful the Comic-Con board will stay the course until they see how the expansion will work out. We would be very, very sad to lose Comic-Con. They are an iconic event here that brings tremendous media coverage. It’s a match made in heaven.
So what does Anaheim have to offer that San Diego doesn't? They have a much larger convention center with half a million more square feet of space than San Diego’s. They have more hotels rooms with more affordable rates. It's closer to Los Angeles and there's just a lot more room to bring in and handle a lot more people.
Comic-Con spokesman David Glanzer acknowledged San Diego’s appeal as a popular destination and the emotional draw of remaining in the show’s hometown, but ultimately, space is a driving factor in deciding whether to stay or go, he said.
We have to be aware of our attendees, and we don’t want it to be problematic for them to attend the show. When you have to limit exhibit space and sell out early, those are negatives, but by San Diego trying to increase hotel-room blocks and utilize space at adjacent hotels, that may neutralize some of those things.
It’s not a secret that Anaheim would love for us to move up there, and they have a world-class facility and a lot of hotels and have put forward a great location, but it will be up to the board to decide exactly what it is we can do. We have to look at the pluses and minuses of everything. It’s not just as easy as choosing a pin on a map and saying, ‘Let’s go here.’
The Comic-Con board is expected to make a decision on its future within the next month.
I really hope they stay in San Diego, its just such a cool place to be. If Comic-Con is open up to more people all of a sudden the amount of people going will jump from 126,000 attendees to who knows how many? But one thing for sure is, there will be a lot more people than that to have to deal with and at that point will Comic-Con even be a fun event to go to anymore?
Who knows what will happen. I hope that Comic-Con stays in San Diego, but it it doesn't ends up moving somewhere else, I guess we'll just have to live with it.
Where would you like to see Comic-Con go? Would you like it to stay in San diego or move to another city?