Anaheim Wants to Take Over San Diego Comic Con

Image by cleopatra69 via Flickr

After 40 years in its San Diego home, Comic-Con International is being courted by Anaheim tourism officials interested in its 125,000-plus attendees, reported the Union-Tribune.

Officials hope the lure of greater event space and cheaper lodging will be enough to rend the decades-long relationship between San Diego and Comic-Con, but San Diego Convention Center officials hope to have expanded their own space by the end of Comic-Con's contract in 2012.

This news is not surprising, because it is many years coming. As an elite broadcast video crew that has collected interviews and B-roll at the San Diego Comic Con over the last decade, we have observed that it is getting too big for its britches.

But there's a Catch 22 or two. It's a convention that was born and raised in San Diego. Convention attendees enjoy the amenities, beauty and moderate weather of San Diego. They like going to the beach, Zoo, Wild Animal Park and SeaWorld when they've had enough of walking the floors at the Comic Con. They enjoy the fact that there are so many great restaurants within walking distance of the San Diego Convention Center. And did I mention the great weather?

So, if you take the SDCC away from San Diego, then it's no longer considered the San Diego Comic Con. Anaheim is okay, but it's no San Diego. Anaheim's got Disneyland. In the middle of summer, when Comic Con is scheduled, who wants to go to Disneyland at the hottest time of summer when all the kids are out of school and - at Disneyland. Um, not me. And can you name any great restaurants in Anaheim?

So Las Vegas? Plenty of room for large conventions? Yes. Good eats? Of course. Except, again, middle of summer, hotter than Hades, yada yada.

I believe that if the San Diego Comic Con move sout of San Diego, there will not be as many attendees. It's like trying to move a palm tree to Michigan. I just don't think it will survive the move.

There are several options on the table. They include enlarging the San Diego Convention Center, spreading out the Comic Con panels and events to outerlying hotels, extending the length of time of the Comic Con, etc. It's all up in the air right now. It's a real quandary. San Diego has until 2012 to think of something. In the meantime, if you haven't gotten your passes for the 2010 Con already, you're too late. Here it is, late March, and snoozers are already losers.