William Shatner headlined 4 Cons this weekend

5 SEPTEMBER 2016



How did you spend Labor Day weekend? Pick one:

•  DragonCon
• Salt Lake Comic Con
• Baltimore Comic Con
• FaxExpo Canada
• The Star Trek event in New York
• PAX West
• San Francisco Comic Con
• Floating in your pool with a beer before you close it up for fall

If you picked the last one, you're a lazy slacker compared to William Shatner, who tweeted that he was featured at 4 of the above this weekend. How did he manage it? I have no idea - the fact that he's in his eighties makes it even more incredible - but we do know that the demand for Con talent is on the rise.

This article from Forbes examines the multiplication of events and how celebrities - even YouTube and cosplay celebrities - are compensated and the ensuing rise in ticket prices. The driving cause of this madness: us. Our insatiable thirst for these events means money to be made. Is it going to peak? Will people burn out on going to Cons, and will the oft-predicted financial crisis around 2018 have any impact on our ability to keep spending on this madness? Or is Con life becoming a quasi-permanent part of our culture like sports?

I'm not sure, but I do know that we all have an embarrassment of riches to choose from when it comes to conventions. San Diego Comic-Con may still be the pick of the litter, but there are enough consolation prizes to make sure everyone has somewhere to go. You just have to appreciate your options.

The history & future of Cons

3 MARCH 2016

You may be irritated by the "Look how important Comic Cons have become & all the odd folks who go to them" articles that run with increasing frequency. But this one in the Wall Street Journal is worth reading, not only for its exploration of your "groupie passions" but for a few factoids and historical gems like:

• ShowClix tallied 519 fan events in 2015, up from 469 in 2014. Wizard World went from 8 events in 2013 to 24 last year.

• Comic-book writer Len Wein claims to have coined the term "Comicon" in 1964 when he was 16. "It was just an offhand phrase - it's not that hard to come up with." Wait, does CCI know this? This could change everything in the CCI vs. Salt Lake Comic lawsuit.

• William Shatner was invited to about 100 events this year and will attend 31 of them. Remember that he's 84.

• An Illinois Con called "DashCon" tailored for Tumblr users tanked so miserably that they had to beg for emergency donations and the Night Vale cast canceled their appearance.

• Anyone who's seen attendees weep over meeting celebrities knows this: certain fandoms "can carry an emotional weight." Cassandra Peterson (aka "Elvira") had a dozen different people cry at one Con when they met her, because they watched her show with a now-deceased loved one. Also interesting for anyone who knows the history of Vampira vs. Elvira: Peterson makes her primary income from licensing and merchandising.

And predictably, people foresee the fall of the Comic Con empire. My prediction: more like a gradual cooling. The article suggests that these intense, all-consuming events are so popular because they're the antidote to Internet life; I think there's something to that, a kind of physical veracity that may become more and more prized as daily life - and eventually humanity? - becomes more virtual. But I think Con popularity is driven by other factors as well and that's why events like QuiltCon and ParanoiaCon are created.

WSJ blames "an obsessiveness bred by the Internet." And certainly it's true that you have to be a little obsessive to get into Cons like San Diego - but I'm guessing obsessiveness bred the Internet as much as it bred us.


 

The monstrous growth of American Comic-Cons

13 JUNE 2014




Happy Friday the 13th. Are you claustrophobic? Then you may experience mild panic upon reading this article talking about the relentless growth of Comic-Cons across the country, which seems to be accelerating at an uncontrollable rate. This proves that it's not only SDCC experiencing rising demand; we just got there first. Consider these numbers.

• Denver Comic-Con launched in 2012 and saw a 120% increase to 61K attendees by 2013
• Emerald City went from 20K attendees in 2010 to 70K in 2014
• Phoenix jumped from 55K last year to 78K this year

It's never going to stop. Everyone wants to go to Comic-Con. They don't even know what it is or what happens there, but they know they want to go. There just aren't venues large enough to meet all of the demand in all of the cities. Something has to give - and while ReedPop's expanded direction for NYCC might be an answer, it isn't one that will satisfy everyone.The follow-up article discusses ways to create a smoother Con experience (mostly in NY) but the basic problem of supply and demand will continue to grow.

The article also noted something we attendees don't often consider; what the growth means for vendors. If you spend $$$ and major PR capital at the Con, only to be buried by 8000 other announcements and vendors - is it worth it? Possibly other companies will follow Image's example and create their own expo, saving their major announcements for that while still having an SDCC presence.

I kind of want to pontificate on why there's such an insatiable need for Cons. It's not just nerdism going mainstream. It's not just the media stories that show all of the fun and none of the tedium. I feel like this is a statement on the hunger people feel for community and connection, especially those who don't do major music festivals, religious retreats or huge sports events. At the Batman panel I attended last weekend, some participants got up at the microphone and actually wept as they explained the role a television show played in their lives - and while the Con may not stir all attendees at that emotional depth, it does seem to fill a unique and powerful need.

No doubt by 2025 we'll have Space Colony Comic-Con, and we'll all be complaining about how the organizers need to terraform Mars faster, and how the passenger flight sale failed to connect to some people's payment circuits. Or maybe the Con experience as we know it now will implode into something currently inconceivable. At least we seem to be on our way to learning from San Diego's lessons and creating better solutions.