San Diego Comic-con could move!

Comic-Con International in San Diego is THE biggest comic and entertainment convention of the year, both in number of attendees and in square-footage. There has been talk for years that the San Diego Comic-con would move. The problem is that the con is at capacity, there is no where to expand TO at their present site. They use every square inch of the current hall for the show. There has been talk of another expansion of the current exhibit facility, but nothing has happened as of yet. If the SD people don't get their act together soon it is very possible that Comic-con International after being in San Diego for the last 40 years will be changing venues. There are apparently 3 other venues that have been courting Comic-con International for years. Their contract expires in 2012 in the current SD location, so after that CCI has not committed to any venue. The three choices are: Las Vegas, Anaheim, and Los Angeles. Check out the chart above, I think it's pretty obvious where the CCI will move to: Los Angeles. It's a no brainer. The con hall costs little to no money, since the city makes up for the loss of revenue in the sheer volume of hotel rooms rented, etc. I don't want to see CCI move from SD, but I don't see what else they can do. The con is already at capacity. They sold out of tickets MONTHS ago, that's right MONTHS. If they could accommodate more bodies, CCI could be making even MORE money. And let's face it, it's all about the money, it has to be when you are in business. I wonder if they've been tracking the number of people that WANTED to get tickets but couldn't. I suppose they could also track the number of people that come to the con during the show and ask for tickets. So they can fit about 126,000 people right now, my guess is they could easily sell another 30,000 tickets if they had them. The problem with moving the show to LA is the hall would only fit an additional 14,000 people. Not much room to grow there, and LV only would accommodate an additional 24,000 people. Hm... I wonder what the capacity for McCormick Place in Chicago is if they use all of the space. Maybe they could just move it here? Chicago SURE is convenient for all the folks in Hollywood, ok NOT, but it's fun to dream. The floor space available at McCormick Place is 2,670,000 square feet, which is 670,000 feet MORE than the LV con hall, which leads me to assume that capacity for attendees would be MORE than LV, but I can't verify that. I tried to call and ask them, but their offices were closed, so give me an "A" for effort anyway. Maybe McCormick Place should also throw their collective hat into the ring for consideration. Yes, C2E2 will indeed be at McCormick place in April 2010, but that will be a brand new show. I expect it to big, grand, and most likely expensive, but it doesn't have the 40 years branding and experience behind it. So could Comic-con International come to Chicago instead of staying in SD or moving to LA or LV? Hell yeah. Do I think it will happen? Hell no. We are just TOO far from Hollywood to make it work, which is why if CCI does change venue, I'm guessing it will just move to LA proper to make it that much easier for the Hollywood folks to come out in droves. In that case, they might as well dump the
"Comic" part of the show and just call it an "Entertainment" expo, but I hope SD finds a way to convince the CCI to stay right where it is in beautiful downtown Sad Diego. If they could present the new expansion plans with a definite ground breaking date, maybe CCI would consider staying. I'll keep you posted.