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September 1, 2011


WonderCon Chooses Anaheim For March 16-18 Show In 2012; Plans To Negotiate For Return To SF In 2013

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Two things of interest. The press release, which you can read in a word document here --

wondercontoanaheim.doc

-- does not mention anything about years past 2012 for either the Moscone Center in the traditional San Francisco setting or for Anaheim. Also, Wizard and C2E2 have agreed to adjust dates on their Anaheim and Chicago shows to make room for WonderCon. This explains why the dates for C2E2 appeared on the McCormick Place site but not from Reed itself. Considering the lack of listing of weekend events at the Chicago lakeside venue on other Spring 2012 weekends, they should be able to find dates reasonably well.

I think this is too bad, as San Francisco is a beautiful setting for a show with a great mix of shops and plenty of things to do off site. I hope the show goes back there, because I think in a Bay Area setting the show will only grow in appeal over the next half-dozen years. On the other hand, Anaheim is Anaheim, and movie studio support at what always seemed to me a perfect time to provide hype to summer movies could give the show some juice that way. Plus you can't have a show if you don't have a proper venue, and the Moscone Center seemed to not only have the structural problem of doing repairs when WonderCon needed dates, it didn't seem to move quickly enough to provide options.

Update: Reed has announced April 13-15 for its 2012 C2E2 show in Chicago.

Update #2 I spoke briefly to David Glanzer of Comic-Con about the decision. He answered the biggest question asked by the press release's phrasing in the affirmative for the Bay Area home of the long-running show. "We will continue to try to book dates at Moscone in San Francisco for 2013." Glanzer said there was no time table for that announcement. "It is typically a long process so I would imagine as soon as we have something to report we will announce. Obviously the longer lead time we can have the better for exhibitors and attendees to plan their schedules." I take that to mean they do not hope for a repeat of this year's extended period before a firm announcement forced up on the organizers by the Moscone Center refurbishment.

Asked what finally came into play to make this decision at this time, Glanzer responded, "Several factors came in to play on our announcement. The first being whether or not we were all in agreement on how to move forward. That is to say making a decision on whether to have a show in 2012 or sitting one year out. And that process really did take some time. In the end we decided it would be better to keep the show on the comics calendar and hope that people will attend even though it's in a different city." He added, "San Francisco really is home to WonderCon and the fan support has been so tremendous that while the show will move for 2012, we hope to have some sort of fan event or events in the Bay Area next year."
 
posted 1:00 pm PST | Permalink
 

 
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