Reed Exhibitions: March of Con-Quest?
(Yeah. Ouch.)
Yesterday I read over on Tony's blog about how the people behind the increasingly successful New York Comic Con have decided that starting in 2010 they would be launching a convention in Chicago the extended weekend of April 16-18.
Overnight, more details came in from Reed Exhibitions, the organization which finally managed to make a successful go of what would have seemed to be an easy and obvious New York City comics convention (considering that both Marvel and DC have their main offices there), including that the New York Comic Con will be moving from its early year position (last year it had been in April, but this year it had to be moved back to February 6-8, this upcoming weekend, due to an inability to book the convention space in April) to roughly permanent dates in the fall starting October of 2010.
The plan appears to be to try to set themselves up as the big alpha and omega comics convention events for the season, presumably realizing that it would be suicide to attempt to unseat Comic Con International's status as THE mid-summer comics convention event for an increasingly multi-media industry. Not only is that convention celebrating its 40th year, but it's difficult to beat San Diego as a vacation-friendly destination.
I'm guessing that these moves are at least in part seen as taking advantage of what appears to be a downturn in the Wizard World convention calendar, which briefly expanded to five shows per year (Boston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago and Dallas, but which quickly folded Boston after a single year. Further, they announced not long ago that the L.A. and Dallas shows were postponed and canceled, respectively. for 2009, with no word that I've seen concerning what "postponed" means for L.A.; presumably it simply means it'll be back somewhere on the schedule in 2010.
Wizard World's operations had become terribly cookie cutter operations, with a sameness that largely drained them of any regional identity. I haven't met anyone who's denied that they'd robbed the once-great Chicago Comic Con (which they bought from the original organizers in the early 1990s) into the ground, so it's hardly a surprise that Reed would look to steal some regional thunder there, even though it's hardly going into direct competition -- Reed's 2010 show will be in mid-April, while this year's Wizard World event there will be August 6-9, and will likely continue to be somewhere in the July-August range it's run in for years.
Wizard World's Philadelphia show (this year June 19-21) continues to be the most convenient one for me, so I'm glad to see it's one of the shows Wizard has stuck with. Hopefully the increased sense of competition will raise their game a little, though the current financial crisis may make this difficult across the board for all of the conventions as both paying attendees and companies/talent will likely be making some harsh decisions on just how many shows each can attend, how far they're willing to travel, and which will provide the biggest bang for his respective buck.
Were I the folks at Reed Exhibitions, I'd be a little concerned about being able to retain the New York City Comic Con's success with a move well into the fall. Securing headline talent, events and industry announcements are all generally critical to the success of a convention.
(Yeah. Ouch.)
Yesterday I read over on Tony's blog about how the people behind the increasingly successful New York Comic Con have decided that starting in 2010 they would be launching a convention in Chicago the extended weekend of April 16-18.
Overnight, more details came in from Reed Exhibitions, the organization which finally managed to make a successful go of what would have seemed to be an easy and obvious New York City comics convention (considering that both Marvel and DC have their main offices there), including that the New York Comic Con will be moving from its early year position (last year it had been in April, but this year it had to be moved back to February 6-8, this upcoming weekend, due to an inability to book the convention space in April) to roughly permanent dates in the fall starting October of 2010.
The plan appears to be to try to set themselves up as the big alpha and omega comics convention events for the season, presumably realizing that it would be suicide to attempt to unseat Comic Con International's status as THE mid-summer comics convention event for an increasingly multi-media industry. Not only is that convention celebrating its 40th year, but it's difficult to beat San Diego as a vacation-friendly destination.
I'm guessing that these moves are at least in part seen as taking advantage of what appears to be a downturn in the Wizard World convention calendar, which briefly expanded to five shows per year (Boston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago and Dallas, but which quickly folded Boston after a single year. Further, they announced not long ago that the L.A. and Dallas shows were postponed and canceled, respectively. for 2009, with no word that I've seen concerning what "postponed" means for L.A.; presumably it simply means it'll be back somewhere on the schedule in 2010.
Wizard World's operations had become terribly cookie cutter operations, with a sameness that largely drained them of any regional identity. I haven't met anyone who's denied that they'd robbed the once-great Chicago Comic Con (which they bought from the original organizers in the early 1990s) into the ground, so it's hardly a surprise that Reed would look to steal some regional thunder there, even though it's hardly going into direct competition -- Reed's 2010 show will be in mid-April, while this year's Wizard World event there will be August 6-9, and will likely continue to be somewhere in the July-August range it's run in for years.
Wizard World's Philadelphia show (this year June 19-21) continues to be the most convenient one for me, so I'm glad to see it's one of the shows Wizard has stuck with. Hopefully the increased sense of competition will raise their game a little, though the current financial crisis may make this difficult across the board for all of the conventions as both paying attendees and companies/talent will likely be making some harsh decisions on just how many shows each can attend, how far they're willing to travel, and which will provide the biggest bang for his respective buck.
Were I the folks at Reed Exhibitions, I'd be a little concerned about being able to retain the New York City Comic Con's success with a move well into the fall. Securing headline talent, events and industry announcements are all generally critical to the success of a convention.
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