Looked-To Comic-Con International Meeting Yields No Decision On 2013

With rumors that a decision on the location of Comic-Con in 2013 and perhaps beyond would come a few weeks after the organization's WonderCon convention, a Sunday board meeting in late April seemed like a likely target for attention. However, that meeting has come and gone without a decision, according to a local media report, and the actual decision will apparently come two or three weeks from now. The article mentions a couple of aspects of the San Diego's offer to the convention, including free meeting space in various hotels in close proximity to the convention center, which one guesses would be used for additional programming and event needs, and that more hotel rooms be made available at a price capped at $300 per night.

I'm a great fan of the convention as it exists right now, and think a lot of complaints about the show are more flash than fire, caused either by the discombobulation felt by a privileged class of comics fans or the natural process by which creators and fans grow away from needing the convention experience. But they are complaints, and eventually people act on complaints one way or the other. I also have no insight into the growing needs of the range of exhibitors the show attracts nor do I have any special insight into how convention prioritizes those needs. My gut tells me that San Diego can best host the convention that exists right now, can handle an increase in demand just as much if not better than the alternatives, and -- I know suggesting the current surge of interest might end one day puts me in a minority -- that it's the best place for the show if interest in a national convention wanes with a still-troubled economy, a national travel infrastructure that has become increasingly frayed, a growing number of regional shows, and if the current broad array of comics-related genre films settles into a blockbuster track of 1-2 films a year.

For me personally, San Diego provides the best show because it's an event and a gathering of various comics movements into one room (you can report and build resources and relationships), all in a city that as an older man I realize is a place I'd like to keep visiting. I just don't have that desire when it comes to the other cities on deck, and I would make a decision how to cover and utilize a non-San Diego CCI with that in mind. Ironically, the connection between city and convention was underlined for me at the above-mentioned WonderCon, which I'd have no desire at all to attend were it to move back to parts outlying.
 
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