With New York Comic Con Special Edition this weekend and San Diego Comic Con International on the horizon, the con season is in full swing, and Multiversity is all over it. Today, we’re looking at the burgeoning world of comic conventions in a series of three pieces, one from a fan perspective, one from a sheer numbers perspective, and then a discussion piece on how to we think one of the biggest cons could stand to improve. Take a look, and make sure to share your thoughts on the world of comic conventions in the comments.
The first comic convention I went to was in 1997. It was Orlando MegaCon, and to 13-year-old David Harper, it was the coolest thing in the world. There I was, walking the halls of giants, surrounded by endless amounts of comic book cool. I got to talk to George Perez for a while with my parents, I met Joe Madureira and Greg Capullo, and my hero at the time – Humberto Ramos – even did a sketch of Impulse for me.
It was an unbelievable experience, but looking back on it, the most unbelievable thing about it was how small it was compared to conventions I’ve been to recently.
The business of comic book conventions has changed dramatically since then, and even more so since the inaugural San Diego Comic Con International. When that first iteration of SDCC hit in 1970, only 145 attendees were there to help raise funds for the official opening edition in August, which brought in a significantly larger number – 300 people. To compare that to today’s standards, SDCC has not had less than 103,000 attendees since 2005, topping out at 130,000 in recent years only due to its venue reaching capacity.
It’s not just San Diego, though. While it continues to be the biggest game in town, new cons are sprouting yearly, and they’re growing quickly too. For one, Denver Comic Con debuted in 2012, launching with the second biggest first year crowd ever for an American comic convention, and its second year saw a 120% increase to 61,000 attendees. It’s an unsustainable rate of growth for sure, but with that con’s 2014 edition coming this weekend, all eyes will be on what it does as an encore.
Well, that is, if it weren’t for ReedPop launching an even more comic centric edition of its popular New York Comic Con, titled “Special Edition“, in the Javits Center this weekend as well. That will divert some of attention east from Denver. ReedPop is good at that though, as last night they announced that NYCC itself is being expanded to an entire week of events called “New York Super Week” that goes far beyond the scope of a normal con and into the mass hysteria event levels of Austin’s South by Southwest.
It’s easy to see why that would happen, though. Cons are big business, with an estimated $488.4 million dollars of economic impact hitting the San Diego area over the span of 2013 to 2015 thanks to SDCC, so it’s only natural that cities and organizations around the nation are looking to capture lightning in a bottle for their own benefit, and expanding where they’ve already seen success.
Even beyond relative neophytes like Denver Comic Con, though, cons are growing by leaps and bounds. The chart above depicts the growth of four of the biggest cons – SDCC, NYCC, Emerald City ComiCon in Seattle, and C2E2 in Chicago – and besides SDCC, which has leveled off because of capacity issues as I said previously, they’ve all seen tremendous growth. ECCC, for example, was at 20,000 total attendees in 2010, and this past March it brought in 70,000 people, a 350% growth in four years. As someone who attended both of those cons, I can tell you that even with expanded venue space, you could feel that growth.
But is the enormous growth of comic conventions creating issues that could negatively impact their future? At the very least, it’s pushing those involved to adapt on the run.
Continued belowAs mentioned above, some cons – including the vaunted SDCC and its closest rival in size NYCC – have reached capacity without any other viable venues in the area. San Diego at least has a solution on the horizon, as there will be a $520 million expansion to the convention center it’s housed at, adding an additional 740,000 square feet of convention space to its already mammoth dimensions.
Others have faced simple logistical issues caused by growth. Denver Comic Con and Niagara Falls Comic Con, two events which have felt the growing pains as much as any cons have, have both been been riddled with complaints about lines and overcrowding, and most every con is beginning to feel the weight of their meteoric rise.
Meanwhile, publishers like Image have seen the need to take some of their biggest announcements away from the con scene, as even announcing a book from two comic giants like Grant Morrison and Chris Burnham can get lost amidst the noise of an event like San Diego or New York. That’s why in 2012, Image launched their own event called Image Expo. After three editions, Image Expo has become one of the most anticipated comic events of the year because it is where all of the big announcements come for them, and because of its more intimate nature.
“At the big cons, there are a multitude of other things happening all at once, and there’s a lot of jockeying for attention, but with more focused events like Image Expo, the announcements have some room to breath, and we’re able to control the presentation a bit more,” Image publisher Eric Stephenson shared about why Image Expo has become necessary in today’s age.
Image still has a presence at these cons, but as far as announcing books are concerned, they save their flagship announcements for the Expo events.
Beyond the overcrowding and the insane amounts of noise that surround these events, the attendance boom has exacerbated issues that likely already existed. New York Comic Con has seen loud complaints of sexual harassment in recent years, which has led some to question San Diego’s ability and policies in dealing with similar issues. Some cons have been progressive in dealing with this problem, as ECCC earned well-deserved praise for their zero tolerance policies when it comes to harassment, but as cons grow, this issue only becomes increasingly likely to be present.
Other cons get bad names for other reasons, as the whole line of Wizard World conventions have earned a reputation for their predatory business practices, most recently being called out for doing what it could to prey upon Minnesota Spring Con just this past year.
With issues like these, one has to wonder whether or not these events could start to lose their luster, and whether this convention bubble could burst in the near future. It’s hard to tell, really. The rate of growth on a global sense is unsustainable, if only because of rising capacity issues, but there’s no reason to think people are going to just up and stop going to these events in the near future, especially given how much they are expanding out of just the realm of comic books, and that the audience is rapidly expanding beyond just men (I should know, having met my wife because she went to SDCC 2012).
The world of music festivals provide a pretty good road map for what might happen. As they grow larger and larger, and more and more people lament their inability to attend, what do they do? They expand, as an event like Coachella added a second weekend in recent years. We’ve already started to see that emulated by ReedPop, with the aforementioned “Special Edition” event and “New York Super Week” being added.
While the numbers may start to level out in coming years, and with greater attendance comes greater issues, it’s hard to argue against one simple fact: these events are good for comics. Whenever I go to a con, I’m genuinely inspired to work even harder at Multiversity, and I have to imagine the same goes double for the writers and artists who the attendees are actually there to see. Until the unbridled enthusiasm tied to these events dies down and is replaced with apathy or negativity, I just have this to say.
Make Mine Comic Con.
