Sharing My Story

Well, I am back from the San Diego Convention.
From my Green Valley home it is about an eight
hour car trip to San Diego. I got home about
11:45 PM last night. Over this next week I will
try to give some of my impressions of this
popular culture event. As mentioned in my
last post the Comic-Con International: San Diego
is probably the largest (or most attended) of any
convention in the US and probably the Western
Hemisphere. However there are similar
conventions in Japan that host 200,000 or
more individual registered attendees.

The San Diego Con is almost getting too big.
The large San Diego convention center is being
maxed out. The huge exhibitors/dealers room
is crammed with numerous sellers of various
kinds of merchandise as well as large motion
picture and media companies promoting their
new films, TV shows and so forth. Usually the
crowds peak on Saturday, but this year it seems
as if the crowds were constant from Thursday
through Sunday. The Convention opens on
Wednesday night for attendees with full
membership. It was reported that there were
around 17,000 that turned out for that.

I suspect that the constant walls of moving
people have an inhibiting effect on customer’s
buying habits. Also the dizzying array of
products competing for the attendee’s dollar
is overwhelming. It seems as if there is too
much product chasing to few customers
(even considering the enormous crowds.)
One convention executive said he felt that
the massive attendance will slowly decline
as the large motion picture companies turn
away from fantasy, science fiction and super
hero subject matter to other areas. He expects
these companies to leave the convention in
two or three years. This may send the send
the convention back to it comic book
collecting roots.

For those interested in a very detailed report
of the just concluded CCI: San Diego I’d
recommend going to Infuzemag.com.