Well, it's feeling like it's about time for another one of these silly periodic discussions over whether Comic-Con International should move out of San Diego and if so, where. Heidi MacDonald (Hi, Heidi!) notes that the November ballot issue in S.D. may have a lot to do with that and she's right.
My prediction is real simple: Comic-Con will never move from San Diego unless it has to because it can't get a proper deal to stay where it is. You have all these people out there (like this guy, John Campea, who argues for Vegas) saying it should relocate because it would be better somewhere else, mainly because it needs more room. I can't speak for the convention organizers but I doubt they see that as a good reason. If they did, they would have moved long ago.
Yes, more people could get in but especially in Vegas, it would not be the same convention in a bigger space. The whole structure and feel of it would change because you'd be eliminating one of the most important elements of the convention — the city it's in. We take over San Diego and the city adjusts itself to welcome us and accommodate us. To Las Vegas, we'd just be one of this week's conventions. No one of them matters to Vegas as much as Comic-Con matters to San Diego and the hotels in Vegas, which run the town, don't need us one-tenth as much as the hotels in San Diego need us.
True, Las Vegas has a lot more space. It even has more than one convention center…but that doesn't mean we'd get all of it or even as much as we want. We'd get as much as we paid for and those facilities are expensive. The whole business model for Vegas conventions presumes everyone is there on business and has an expense account…and you don't want to hear what exhibitors pay for their booth space. That's because most of the 20,000 or so conventions held in Vegas each year are industry trade shows. Most are not open to the general public and all but a few have fewer attendees than Comic-Con.
In his podcast video, Mr. Campea makes reference to the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which is usually the largest convention of the year in that town. Some might suggest that's in part because it's held in January when Las Vegas has better weather than the rest of the country. Comic-Con is held in July when Vegas weather is usually over 100°, often over 110° Anyone want to cosplay outside in an Iron Man suit in that climate?
Now, I've been to the C.E.S. and I found it to be just as noisy and crowded as the worst corners of Comic-Con, with everything so spread out that to get from one place to another required way more walking than I ever have to do in San Diego…and I do a lot of walking in San Diego.
It's somehow crowded even though it covers more ground and most people can't get in to the C.E.S. To get a badge, you need to prove you're in the Consumer Electronics industry and they cap admissions at not that much more than Comic-Con admits, even though C.E.S. has way more floor space available to it. Here's an excerpt from an article about the 2015 show…
The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas has a problem that many events would love to have: It's become too big. And it doesn't want to get any bigger.
With as many as 160,000 visitors to CES — the world's largest annual trade show — the Nevada city's sprawling hotels are stretched to the limit. Last January's gathering of gadget-loving geeks somehow packed in a full 10,000 more people than Las Vegas has rooms for them to sleep in.
The Consumer Electronics Association, the folks who put on the conference and expo, says CES 2015 will have the equivalent of 35 football fields, or about 2 miles of floor space, filled with phones, televisions, smartwatches, washing machines and throngs of people trying to see it all. "In order to enhance the experience for our attendees, we aim to keep attendance between 150,000 and 160,000 so that everyone can get where they need to go," says CEA Vice President Karen Chupka.
Comic-Con has somewhere around 130,000 to 140,000 attendees every year — and unlike C.E.S., Comic-Con probably has another 50,000+ people who come to town and enjoy the activities right outside the convention center. Keep all that in mind if you think that all Comic-Con needs is a lot more floor space and it could double in size. The physical convention space to be found in Vegas is more than double in size but the biggest conventions staged in that town are not as big as they could be, often by choice. (Most actually are under 10,000 in attendance.)
Couldn't Comic-Con expand to, say, 250,000 people there? In theory, sure. In reality? Well, no one knows how that would work because Vegas conventions don't get that big. What would that do to traffic and hotel prices and taxi availability and so many other things? Again, no one knows because Vegas conventions don't get that big, especially in July. If I were running Comic-Con, I sure wouldn't want to go try to figure that out and gamble on it and to try and transcend all existing business models there.
I know that some will say I feel that way because as a usual Guest of Honor person, I don't face the prospect of not being able to get a badge or a hotel room. Believe me, I am sympathetic to those who face those frustrations and I hear from a lot of them. I also hear from people who are unhappy with Comic-Con because it's as huge as it is. There are those who aren't there because they feel it's too big and there are those who aren't there because they feel it's too small. I don't think it's humanly possible to please both groups.
Which is why — unless someone in San Diego is stupid (and I mean seriously brain-dead stupid) enough to drive Comic-Con away — it will stay right where it is. I hope, I hope, I hope.