New York Comic-Con & Special Edition

12 JUNE 2014



If your convention doings are strictly West Coast, you may not give a fig for New York Comic-Con. Fair enough. But this New York Times blog post shared some interesting news about NYCC's changes that may forecast the shape of things to come for many Cons - who knows, maybe even for San Diego.

ReedPop, who organizes NYCC, has expanded its scope by turning 3-12 October into "New York Super Week," a citywide celebration of gaming events, comedy shows, lectures, concerts and other events. This will partly overlap with NYCC, which runs 9-12 October.  The idea is to become kind of like SXSW but with a "distinct New York sensibility and flair."

The tickets will be sold individually but there will also be a Super Week Card for sale that provides discounts and priority seating. ClearChannel is ReedPop's media partner and will produce some events. This is one of my favorite quotes ever: "It was natural to broaden the scope of the content and tear it out of the Javits Center and into the city at large." Like a baby dinosaur that grew too large for its confining egg, NYCC is now stomping around the city, growing new scales and eating more of your money.

So what does that mean for other Cons? It might mean that this is a viable way to cater to different interests while accommodating the ever-rising demand for badges. Possibly ReedPop looked at SDCC's physical limitations and wanted to find solutions before they hit that point. (Which is approaching rapidly for them.) Scattering panels, events and presentations over a greater period of time and number of venues does offer some breathing room - but it also makes it more expensive for out-of-towners to experience the whole show.

New York Comic-Con tickets go on sale 18 June; the first ever comic book-focused Special Edition:NYC is this weekend. From the programming, it looks like a fairly polished event and not just a collection of vendors selling back issues, as some predicted. It's hard not to detect Clear Channel's conglomerate paw in all of this - which may rouse mixed feelings in attendees who want the organization and efficiency of a media superpower without the corporate ownership.