West
San Diego Still Doesn't Know: Will Comic Con Stay or Go?
August 3, 2010
Although its organizers intended to make a decision before this year's event, the 41st annual Comic-Con International comic book trade show concluded last week in San Diego, where tourism officials are still wondering: When its contract with the city expires in 2012, will the convention stay in San Diego, or gamble on a new destination?
Founded in 1970, Comic-Con International has been in San Diego since its start and has taken place at the San Diego Convention Center for 20 of its 41 years. Because the show has grown so large, however — this year's event, which took place July 22-25, was expected to attract approximately 126,000 daily visitors — San Diego is now facing stiff competition from other destinations with larger facilities, such as Anaheim and Los Angeles, both of which are vying for the chance to host Comic-Con International in 2013, through at least 2015.
According to the San Diego Business Journal, Comic-Con organizers said in June that they would announce their 2013 choice before the start of this year's show. Just prior to the event, however, Comic-Con Director of Marketing and Public Relations David Glanzer said they'd changed their mind.
"We're so swamped with just running this thing now, we've decided to just sit down after the show is over — probably in the week after the show — and look closely at these proposals again," he told the paper.
In an effort at retaining the convention, San Diego recently has sweetened its Comic-Con proposal, promising to double the number of hotel rooms reserved for meeting attendees from 7,000 to 14,000, as well as to secure 300,000 square feet of meeting space for the convention at nearby hotels, offering Comic-Con $100,000 per year for five years — 2011 through 2015 — to help it defray the costs of shuttling visitors between events at the convention center and those at hotels.
Although it wouldn't be complete until 2015, the city also is considering a $753 million convention center expansion that would allow it to attract and retain large conventions — including Comic-Con — by adding an additional 200,000 square feet of exhibit space, a third ballroom, 100,000 square feet of meeting space and a new 500-room hotel directly behind the convention center.
According to the San Diego Convention Center Corp., which operates the San Diego Convention Center, Comic-Con is estimated to have an economic impact of $163 million in San Diego County.
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