Chicago and New York Comic Con Details

With the New York Comic Con only a few amazingly short days away, the company behind the event has released some interesting news. They will be launching another pop-culture con in 2010 to be based in Chicago, the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo to be precise. Also of note is they they will be moving future New York Comic Con events to the fall, making it the tail end of the convention season.

The rescheduling of NYCC seems like an excellent idea, particularly in light of the relative disaster that this year will be for topics near and dear to the heart of the Preserve. In particular, by shifting the date of this year's event to February 6th, they have put it exactly 1 week before Toy Fair - inarguably the key event of the entire year for the toy industry. As a result, toy companies are unwilling to reveal any new products at NYCC, needing to save the big news for the industry event. There is also a logistical nightmare of doing a full set up and tear down of a complicated exhibition booth on adjacent weekends.

A friend of the Preserve who is himself neck deep in the toy industry predicted nearly a year ago that basically no toy companies would bother with NYCC in 2009 due to this scheduling problem. Now that the exhibitor roster has been posted, he has been shown to be correct! The big surprise is that Mattel is doing a real push at the show, complete with a show exclusive, which is however just an early-release of Faker in the Masters of the Universe Classics line. Other than Mattel and several smaller companies, the roster of usual suspects is all but empty. Our friend explained the real costs involved to a small company if they had to stay in New York between the events, which is the only reasonable solution given setup and breakdown needed and the small gap between them.

• 3 extra hotel nights/ 1 room (minimum) $600
• Parking (1 vehicle) $120
• Food (2 people) $120
• Storage $120

Those numbers are on the low side, with storage in the city for anything substantial being scarce and sky high, not to mention the rapid spike of adding another car or hotel room. It becomes clear that for a small company, attending both shows this closely together is too expensive (at least $1000 extra) and too logistically complex. Hopefully now that the event will have a permanent home in the fall, we'll see a benefit for both exhibitors and attendees alike!
Posted by charlie on February 3rd 2009, 08:12 AM
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