Category: Conventions

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LEGO Comic-ConComic-Con International was a lot more fun and a lot less overwhelming than usual this year.

Maybe it’s because we skipped the busiest day to go the San Diego Zoo. Maybe it’s because we picked our battles on what we tried to do. Maybe it’s because last year we crammed the whole experience into a single day, and having three days felt like a luxury in comparison. Or the fact that the logistics of getting to and from the con were so ridiculously complicated (more about that later) that they made the convention seem relaxing.

Batgirl (Cassandra Cain)Whatever the reason, the floor did seem a bit less crowded this year. Both of us remarked on the fact that we never felt trapped as we usually feel on the busiest days.

(Skip to the photos if that’s what you want.)

Thursday was the day I spent mostly on the floor, exploring. I hit the usual haunts: DC Comics, Sideshow Collectibles, Studio Foglio. DC was really plugging their upcoming fighting game, Injustice: Gods Among Us.

LOTR FigurinesSideshow seems to be displaying more figurines (and a wider variety) every year. Their Lord of the Rings figurines are absolutely incredible. Though I’m not sure what the target audience is for the life-sized Han Solo in Carbonite or Boba Fett. I can’t see putting one of those in my living room. They also had a very cheesecaky Poison Ivy statue. I overheard someone saying they couldn’t see themselves buying it because it would be like having that lamp in A Christmas Story. At another booth I discovered that you actually can buy that lamp.

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WonderCon’s first year in Anaheim* was a lot of fun despite the rain and wind. I actually enjoyed it more than the last one I attended in San Francisco (WonderCon 2010). Partly that’s because a lousy trip into SF soured my mood, and partly it’s because I spent all three days at the con this year, but it’s also because this year’s con had everything I’ve come to expect at a WonderCon, with more space, so the crowds never got unbearable.

»Skip to the photos if you’re so inclined.

There was a very strong comic book focus to the con, maybe not so much as at Long Beach, but all the major comics publishers were there, plus many of the minor ones. I was surprised to find webcomics wrapped around the large-press area and not hidden off in a corner. The small press and Artist’s Alley areas were huge (especially when compared to Wizard’s Comic Con in the same hall two years ago). And there were comic book dealers all over the place.

The only real complaint I had about the layout was that it seemed a bit haphazard. Marvel, IDW, and DC were front and center, but Studio Foglio and the Winner Twins were stuck in between IDW and DC. Zenescape was off in a corner rather than being clustered with fellow indies Archaia, Aspen and Avatar. And when I say the comic dealers were all over the place, I mean scattered all over the place.

The rest of the convention center was being used by a girls’ volleyball tournament and a cheerleading competition. I was encouraged by the fact that the players were just as interested as the fans in taking photos of and with the people in costumes, from Captain America and Bucky through Optimus Prime.

*They’d like to return to San Francisco after Moscone Center’s renovations are done, but that’s still up in the air.

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With all the talk of Comic-Con International moving out of San Diego someday, it was pretty much impossible not to consider this weekend’s WonderCon as a test case.

The Anaheim Convention Center definitely has the floor space. WonderCon used about 1/4 of the main floor this weekend (all of Hall D, unlike Wizard in 2010, which only used about half to two-thirds of it), not counting registration downstairs.

Rooms for programming might be a problem. As near as I can tell, WonderCon used all the meeting rooms on level 2, and the large ballroom that takes up most of level 3. The Arena might be a good replacement for San Diego’s Hall H, but for the smaller panels they’d have to spill over into the nearby hotels. Fortunately, those hotels are next to the convention center, not at opposite ends or across a railroad like in San Diego.

Parking was the major breakdown this year, and Comic-Con will need even more. (I’d guess a lot of the people at the volleyball and cheer competitions were staying in hotels from out of town, or bused in from closer schools.) I suspect if they can use the stadium lot all four days and direct people to it clearly (including signs between the freeway and convention center letting people know that the convention lot is full, and accurate directional signs all the way to the stadium lot), it will probably be all right.

Food could be a problem, but it’s easily solved by bringing in food trucks or encouraging people to walk a few minutes. You know…like we do in San Diego. (Though hotel restaurants and a half-empty mall have nothing on the Gaslamp District.)

Hotels, to me, are the biggest open question. Most of the pro-Comic-Con-in-Anaheim articles I’ve seen sort of gloss over the fact that Disneyland is right across the street, or use it to bolster the claim that there are lots of hotels.

But you know, Disneyland visitors are going to be using those hotels, too. Especially during the height of summer.

Update 2017: The convention center is building a whole new wing with 200K more square feet. WonderCon is now using 3/4 of the main floor for the exhibit hall, the remaining section for registration, and programming is spilling over into the Hilton. There are a lot of new hotels in the same block and the next one over. Restaurants are about the same, but they’ve brought in more food trucks every year. Parking’s still a problem, though.

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Banner: Comic-Con International

If you’re trying to get a message out, or provide a service, analytics are great. They tell you what’s working and what’s not, so you can focus on what does work. Unfortunately, when it comes to email, a lot of organizations use a third-party click-tracking service, which registers which mailing the user clicked on, then redirects them to the real website.

Why do I say unfortunately?

Because it’s what phishing does: Sets up a link that looks like it goes one place, but sends you somewhere else instead. In the case of a legitimate email with a click tracker, you end up at the real site eventually. In the case of a phishing message, you end up at a fake login page that wants to capture your username & password, or a site with drive-by malware downloads. Using this technique in legit mail trains people to ignore warning signs, making them more vulnerable to the bad guys. And it makes it harder for security software to detect phishing automatically.

Now add another reason: You don’t control that click-tracking service, so it had better be reliable.

That’s what happened with Comic-Con registration today.

Getting tickets to San Diego Comic-Con used to be a breeze, but last year the system broke down repeatedly. It took them three tries, with multiple handlers, to open a registration system that didn’t melt in the first few minutes.

A few days ago, Comic-Con International sent out a message with the date and time registration would open, and a link to where the page would be when it went live. They went to a lot of trouble to make sure their servers could handle the load, as did the company handling registration. They built a “waiting room” to make sure that people trying to buy tickets would get feedback, and get into a queue, when they arrived, but could still be filtered into the registration system slowly enough not to overwhelm it.

The weak link: The click tracker.

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I wasn’t sure what to expect from Comikaze Expo, and I’d just been to Long Beach Comic-Con the weekend before, but I was curious about the new show, and for $12 a day, I figured I’d check it out. Getting a discount on that already-low price through Goldstar clinched it, and when I found out my friend Wayne was going, we decided to carpool.

Cobra cosplay including the Baroness and Serpentor at Comikaze Expo 2011.What we found was a surprisingly big show, with a wide variety of exhibitors, though I’d hesitate to call it a “Comic-Con.” More of a general geek pop culture show. There were certainly comic book artists and dealers (a few of whom I recognized from last week), but it reminded me a bit of the last Wizard con I went to (Anaheim 2010). There were actors & celebrities, artists, indie publishers, authors, dealers, T-shirt and nerdy craft sellers, costumers, fan groups for everything from G.I. Joe to Firefly, tattoo artists (that’s a new one), a giant card game area, a giant tabletop game area, and a video game demo trailer. All in all, it was somewhere between Wizard and San Diego without the big names.

The Crowd at Comikaze Expo 2011

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