Category: Conventions

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When I heard that Long Beach Comic Con was rebranding itself as Long Beach Comic and Horror Con this year, I was a little concerned. One of the things I liked most about it the first two years was the heavy emphasis on comics compared to San Diego (which has plenty of comics, but is so big that it’s easy to miss them) or the Wizard conventions (which seem to have refocused around celebrities). As it turns out, the horror didn’t drown out the comics at all. The front of the hall was still mainly comics publishers, with dealers (mostly comics and collectibles) behind them in a U shape, wrapped around the core: a gigantic Artist’s Alley.

Of course, Halloween and horror did make their presence known, starting with the signs for zombie parking, and continuing with programming, guests and costumes. (Jump straight to the photos.)

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Darth Joker cosplay at Comic-Con 2011This year, we approached Comic-Con International a bit differently than usual. For the last seven years we’ve been staying in town for all four days. With the baby, we decided to do Comic-Con 2011 in just one day. So we left him with relatives and took the train down to San Diego for the day. We arrived in town about 9:00, walked down to the convention center, and had our badges just after the floor opened at 9:30.

(Full photo set on Flickr, Flash-related coverage on Speed Force.)

Jack Skellington Puppet/Costume at Comic-Con 2011Planning a trip to Comic-Con is always about trade-offs. It’s so big that you can’t see everything, and there are so many events going on that you can’t attend them all. With four days, there’s some wiggle room. With just one, it seemed like I was constantly thinking about those choices.

One of the first choices I made: No news panels. I could get that the next day online (and did). I wanted to focus only on what was unique to the con: exhibits, meeting people, the art show, etc. Basically, I wanted to experience as much of San Diego Comic Con as I could in one day.

Katie decided to pick two things and build her day around them: visiting The Field, an Irish pub our friend Sean introduced us to a few years ago, and seeing the new Thundercats screening. Continue reading →

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Looking along a long, semi-open tube in a building, with the Comic-Con banner in the center.

Comic-Con International sold out this weekend. The convention isn’t until July, which makes the January sell-out surprising enough…but tickets didn’t even go on sale until this past Saturday, and were all gone by the end of the day!

In past years, tickets haven’t been a problem. This year, they’ve become as hard to get as convention-rate hotel rooms. And those? The con hasn’t even announced when they’re going on sale.

This is the view from one of the escalators in the San Diego Convention Center lobby. One of my friends once referred to it as the “Death Star Cannon” view, inspired by the shot of the inside of the cannon firing near the end of Star Wars.

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ZatannaOn the last weekend of October, I made it out to the second annual Long Beach Comic Con. It’s shaping up to be a very artist–, writer– and dealer-focused convention.

A couple of years ago, Wizard World Los Angeles seemed to be all about people looking for deals on comics and collectibles (in which case, why not just go to Frank and Son or the Shrine?). When the show resurfaced in Anaheim this year, it seemed to be all about the celebrity autographs.

If you just want to see the photos, check out the photo set on Flickr. Otherwise, read on!

Layout

OBISHWNThe first thing everyone noticed was the row of themed cars out in front of the convention center: A Camaro painted up as Bumblebee, a replica of KITT from Knight Rider, cars from less geeky shows like Starsky and Hutch and (IIRC) Magnum, P.I.…and a car that had been modified to look like a Rebel Alliance small fighter, complete with an R2 unit!

The main floor at Long Beach was bigger this year than last, though nowhere near as big as Anaheim. Unlike Anaheim, they used most of their space.

All the publishers were clustered near the entrance, with Aspen and BOOM! the most prominent, followed by Top Cow, Image and Avatar in the next row with other small press, along with the celebrity autograph area off to one side.

Dr. Doom and Captain AmericaThe rest of the floor was structured with a huge Artist’s Alley at its core, surrounded by retailers on either side. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that it was two Artist’s Alley areas with dealers wrapped around them in a sort of F shape.

If you went to Anaheim Comic-Con this year, remember how big the celebrity signing area was, and how small the artists’ area was? Flip it. My gut instinct says that there were more artists with tables here than there were in San Diego, but then it could just be that they’re a bigger percentage of the smaller space.

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Comic-Con 2011 ticket sales crashed under heavy load shortly after going online.

I think we’re seeing another shift in the process of getting to Comic-Con.

It used to be that, as long as you were aware of the onsale dates and could both plan your trip and pay for your tickets far enough ahead of time, getting those tickets wasn’t a problem. Sure, the show might sell out months ahead of time, but it would take weeks or months to get to that point.

Now, people are looking at preview night already being sold out, and looking back at their last experience with hotel reservations, and freaking out: We can’t just buy our tickets this week – we have to buy them NOW, as soon as they go on sale, or we won’t be able to get in!

Get enough people reacting that way, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Fear of a rush ends up creating a rush, just like fear of a run on a bank often triggers one. Add in the live progress bars as a feedback mechanism, and it snowballs even faster.

Until it crashes the server, anyway…

(Originally posted as a comment at The Beat.)