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Ben Schwartz On The Difficulties Of Attending CCI
posted July 31, 2009
 

Re your point: "3. The more successful a convention becomes, the more it may preach to the choir."

One choir boy's opinion: What's turning me off to SDCC, which is the convention I usually go to every year, is the dilution of what used to be a comics convention but is now a multi-media marketing event. This is old news, of course. It seems to me, the more successful the convention is in terms of attendees and tickets sold, the more they have included big movie celebrity events, Lego, or games promotions. I'm not knocking this stuff ­ the lego pit alone is why my three-year-old wants to go ­ but it's just not for me. It's not that comics aren't represented at SDCC, but the physical crush of the last two years inside the hall and outside (finding parking, the phone lottery for hotel rooms, transportation to and from) was too much to do this year (with a three-year-old in tow).

As a fan, there is always a panel I want to see, and as a journalist and screenwriter, some networking opportunity. However, celebrity appearances and other large-crowd events make just casually walking around or getting to a publisher's booth too damn hard ­ especially when I live in a town with Meltdown comics and a half a dozen other direct sales shops within 15 minutes of my house.