[…] Building a Comics Oasis: How to Stage a Comic-Conglomeration in Vegas […]

This can only be intelligently discussed by people who have actually been to convention in Las Vegas in the summer where the average daytime temperature is 115 or higher. A lot of people come to Comicon from other states where it has never been 115 and never will be. People attending Comicon in San Diego find it rough when the outdoor temperature is 85 and you have to go to a restaurant or back to your hotel. 25 years ago I went to a convention in Las Vegas in summer and one time I walked out of a convention center (where the temp was about 65) outside to where it was 115 and across the street into an air conditioned hotel. Within minutes I felt light-headed and almost fainted, something which hasn’t happened to me anywhere else or since, and I was obviously a lot younger 25 years ago than I am now.

Are there any local factors aside from facilities (exhibition and hotel space) that make a city (Vegas or any other) particularly hospitable to a comics convention, Hyper- or otherwise?

This story delves into just the pros and not the cons. If the CCI were to be held in Mandalay Bay and the hotels surrounding it, how do you keep underage people out of the casino? Open container law is another issue. The weather/temperature would be a huge issue especially those in costume. Security being a big issue, the money that would have to be spent for it would be a lot more than what is paid in San Diego. Hotel rooms? All those hotels will not cater to CCI for a 4-5 day con especially with the traffic they receive during the summer. There are quite a few other things, this is just scratching the surface.

You know Wizard World did a convention earlier this year. And Amazing Las Vegas Comic Con just finished up it’s third year back in June.

Ugh. The people that talk most about moving the San Diego Comic Con out of San Diego are select media sites. If Las Vegas is such a great place for a comic convention then let someone start one and prove it. LA already has a convention too. It’s called Wonder Con which is run by the same people who run SDCC so why would they need both cons in the same city. So the last option for SDCC leaving is Anaheim which I’m guessing we’ll hear for the next few years. Las Vegas may want the SDCC but it hasn’t been a serious option if you believe what’s been said by the SDCC organizers. If you don’t like going to San Diego then go to one of the many conventions around the U.S. and quit worrying about when the SDCC is moving.

FYI, the bayside Marriott is currently expanding their convention space by a sizable amount which will be completed next year so future cons in San Diego will enjoy more in closed space as well as the convention and city looking at ways to continue to spread the whole thing out.

This article is NOT about moving CCI to Vegas.
“What follows is not a specific “could CCI-San Diego become CCI-Vegas?” analysis. ”

Keeping kids out of the casinos: How do they do that now? Security keeps an eye on the traffic, makes sure they don’t stray from the carpeted path each casino has demarcated. (I recall Circus Circus (very family friendly) and MGM Grand both having “fairytale paths”.)

Yup. Last year, I attended the ALA conference at the end of June. 106F. That’s why I dismissed the LVCC as a site.
Yes, it’s too damn hot in Las Vegas in the summer. That’s why no one goes there from June-August! Except for those crazy music fans at the Electric Daisy Carnival. And the hordes of tourists on the Strip.

That’s also why I selected the Mandalay/Luxor/Excalibur site. It’s all connected, you don’t have to step foot outside (there’s a tram), and the overpasses on Tropicana make walking to the other hotels easy. (I recommend grabbing a $1 bottle of water from the vendors as you trek across.)

From June 2014, Las Vegas Review-Journal:
“Las Vegas tourism on record pace in June”
“The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority on Friday reported 3.46 million visitors to Southern Nevada for the month, a 3.1 percent increase from a year earlier. At the halfway point of 2014, Las Vegas is on pace to attract more than 41 million tourists, well ahead of 2012’s record 39.7 million.”
“The authority also said city hotels had the second-best monthly occupancy rate of the year at 90 percent in June, 2.6 percentage points better than a year earlier.”

Open container law? You mean people walking around INSIDE with drinks? NYCC and C2E2 (with an official beer) sell light alcoholic drinks onsite. Outside? That’s a matter for the local sheriff.

Cosplaying? Anchor it at one hotel. I suggested that in the article… each hotel/casino could host a specific fandom via programming. Most cosplay happens near the Dealer Room (where the most traffic is), so that would mean Mandalay Bay.

Hotels offering rooms to the convention… Don’t they offer a block of rooms for using the convention/meeting space in the hotel? In San Diego, hotels DO set aside rooms, and it’s still a major headache for attendees to get a room! (And good luck finding a room under $100!) (Or trying to park your RV!)

As for CCI moving, return to the top of the screen and read my prognostication/analysis. CCI gets a SWEETHEART deal to remain in San Diego. Even if the Convention Center never gets enlarged, CCI will remain, so long as they get cheap rent and the hotels are happy to sell rooms at inflated prices to attendees.

OK. You’ve more than adequately shown how there is ample exhibition and hotel space in Las Vegas to support a huge convention. But that’s not the same thing as showing that Las Vegas could/should support a huge *comics* convention.

I mean, if this article is basically just a logistics exercise to figure out how you could take everything (or more) that San Diego does for Comic-Con and put it in Las Vegas, that’s fine, for what that’s worth.

But if this exercise (or the conversation it engenders) becomes about whether or not a major Las Vegas comics/pop culture is truly viable, then I’d hope to see answered other kinds of questions that get at the marketplace need for such a show. For instance: Does Las Vegas have a particularly robust local network of comics fans that are underserved by existing local conventions? Is there a time of year in the convention schedule without a major hyper convention that needs to be filled? Those sorts of things.

There’s got to be more to making a comics convention than just the logistics where to put the show’s elements and lodge attendees. The article is called “How to Stage a Comic-Conglomeration in Vegas.” But if anyone’s ever really going to get the opportunity to work out that “how,” they’ll first have to engage the question: “Why Stage a Comic-Conglomeration in Vegas?”