For the second year, ReedPOP has hosted a comics-focused mini-con on the Hudson River: Special Editon: New York City, promoted as “a pure celebration of comic book culture created specifically for die-hard comic book fans, creators and publishers!”
Which, it was. It was the size of MoCCA Fest (and recalled those shows at the Armory), and almost duplicated the Wizard World show held at the same pier in 2009. The show seemed to be little changed from last year’s inaugural show at the Javits Center, although the new venue offered some new challenges.
Here are my observations, with some caveats. ReedPOP does advertise on this site, and overall, we like them, and they’ve been nice to us here at The Beat. I didn’t attend this show under a press pass…I was here strictly as a consumer, to meet artists, find some cheap comics, and just relax and enjoy the show. I also wanted to support the show, because, frankly, I love dealer shows, and even smaller comic cons, which this most definitely is. The hype level is lower, the personal space a bit wider, and I know I’ll meet most of the people I meet at other shows, but with more time to chat. With the Internet, I no longer feel the need to sit in a panel room, especially when someone will post a summary a few hours later. But that’s just me. Everyone has their own reasons for attending shows, and when people can do what they want to do with minimal headaches and snafus, most people are happy.
So… my observations.
I’ve attended almost all of the MoCCA Fests, I attended the Wizard World “con war” show hosted at this pier in October 2009. I’ve wandered the decaying aisles of the Hotel Pennsylvania during Big Apple shows. I’ve been to myriad comics shows all over the New York metro area.
So let’s talk about the venue: Pier 94. This was the same venue used by Wizard World in 2009. It’s not “on the waterfront”, it’s ON THE WATER. It’s a pier, once used for shipping goods to and from Manhattan. (The cruise ship terminal is just a few blocks south.) The building is a giant field house shed. Exposed rafters and HVAC. Plain concrete floors. Rooms created by basically building a box on the floor.
So, this means that the roof leaks. (I felt one drop, and one Facebook comment noted that a sketch was splotched by an errant drop.) Thankfully, the weather was perfect this weekend, or else there would have been more complaints, both inside and walking outside. When I attended the venue in October 2009, the weather was damp and dreary, and the venue had little heating. (This might be due to the organizers not wanting to pay extra for climate control, for which MoCCA frequently was criticized when they used the Puck Building during Summer months.)
So, yes, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see Babes In Arms cosplay. That’s the basic DNA of a smaller comic con: find an affordable space, sell booths to retailers, tables to artists, and hope the general public shows up. That space can be a barn, an armory, a hotel, an arena, a pier, even a cruise ship! If done right, the show feels like a mini-con, with famous guests, events and panels aimed at specific fandoms, and a general feeling of “this is so great!”
But, there were some mistakes made.
The space on the far left (southern end) was used for ticketing and selling NYCC tickets.
The T-layout of the building (pier plus road-front building) caused a bit of a challenge with layout. The big open space made the panel rooms difficult to manage, as sound carried from one to the other. (This is a smaller problem at Javits, but even there, noise from one room can filter over to the next.) Curtain-and-drape does not muffle sound. This could have easily been solved by placing one of the panels at the far western end of the pier, on the other other side of Artist Alley which was used as a concessions area, far from the other panel which was at the front of the building. By placing a destination point at the back of the space, you encourage attendees to wander through artists alley, increasing the traffic and potential sales.
The booth layout was generally good and easy to navigate. Artist Alley aisles did get crowded at times, especially those along the far north wall, (You can see the big empty space their, in the middle third.) Having one of two bathrooms in the building located there did not help matters, especially after the men’s room towards the front was taken out of service.
Yet, the 2×2 booth layout didn’t work very well. (NYCC generally uses 2×3 or 2×4 layouts.) Booths felt spread out, some felt lonely, and the giant space of the building made it feel, well, dystopian. (Did anyone else expect Batman to come crashing through the ceiling to fight the Joker?)
But this is a problem all event planners face in New York… how do you rent a space, budget the show so that exhibitors will show up and ticket prices can be kept affordable so that people show up to buy stuff? I’m an armchair architect, and I love looking at venues, measuring spaces, and wondering if a show that took place in one venue can transition to someplace else. But it’s not easy, especially for shows of this size. Javits North (where SENYC14 was held) has 80,000 square feet of space. Pier 94: 133,000 sq.ft. (A football field, minus the endzones, is 48,000 square feet.)
The Armory Hall where MoCCA used to be? 45,000 sq.ft. The Marriott Marquis offers 21,550 and 28,258 sq.ft in two ballrooms. Here’s a site listing the ten largest venues in NYC for events. Javits North is #1, Pier 94 is #2, Resorts World way out by JFK airport is #3. The Penn Pavilion, which hosted the Big Apple shows back in the day, has 40,000 sq.ft. over two floors.
So… there are few places where a show like this can be in New York City. Even if a hotel were used, with a box office and event rooms elsewhere, the ballroom space available wouldn’t be large enough. I count 164 10×10 booths at SENYC15. That equals 16,400 sq.ft., not counting the aisles (~20,000 sq.ft.), or Artist Alley (~5,000 sq.ft. for the tables, ~10,000 for the aisles, as well as space behind the tables.). Over 50,000 sq.ft of space needed for a show floor, probably more given my sloppy back-of-the-envelope calculations.
ReedPOP’s Special Edition shows are small comic cons, and seem to be designed to compete with Wizard World. A show like this would easily fit into a local convention center, not a hotel. Wizard World Des Moines, scheduled for next week, will utilize 147,000 sq.ft. (147 booths, 117 artist tables, 6 fan tables).
I do hope that Special Edition continues, and as an attendee, I hope it moves back to Javits North. That hall is big, brand new (2010), clean, and has multiple clean bathrooms. Fans are familiar with the space, and if panels are housed in 1-A, then it’s a short walk, and there’s space to hold more than two tracks of programming. Even better… the northernmost exit… it’s two blocks to 42nd Street, and the 7-Eleven and Subway sandwiches.
First of all this “satisfaction in being able to have meaningful and less hurried interactions with their current fans and new readers.” is PR blather….I doubt very much that Ethan Van Scriver really wants to have a twenty minute conversation with a fan…
Second of all, the implosion is coming…there are simply not enough creators who matter for this to work…we had a con in Canada a couple weeks ago that had the stormtrooper who says “these aren’t the droids we’re looking for” as a guest…and somehow this is all supposed to work?
Unless there is a huge celeb influx of people willing to do cons or something along those lines, there just isn’t any way that creators are going to want to make cons/hotels their entire lives…
Rutland, Vermont, con organizers. Home of the original DC/Marvel crossover.
Just sayin’.
i tried getting VIP tickets this morning for the NYCC show. i was at the site at 12 noon sharp, i clicked for tickets , was put in a waiting area , and exactly three minutes later was informed that the tickets had SOLD OUT. in three frickin’ minutes? since when is trying to score tickets to a comic con like trying to score tickets to a springsteen or stones concert? so now comes the news that there will be more smaller cons in the tri-state (quad-state , if you count places like philly or even baltimore) areas. count me in. as long as they keep the guest list chock full of comic creators old and new , corporate and indy, hot and not so hot, there should be no problem attracting folks to come to these shows. ethan van scriver might put up with a twenty minute conversation with fan , if that fan is dropping some scratch for an on the spot sketch or commission (not to mention paying less for a table at a these smaller cons). that’s the point , the more venues that hold these type of cons gives the creators more opportunities to make more bread. can all of this lead to con burnout with fans and creators alike ? sure, but i for one will enjoy the ride while it lasts. a vendor that i know that attended the comic fest in westchester as a vendor on saturday tells me that he spoke to the folks running the comic fest, they informed him that they will be back next year with a two day show at that venue. now i know that nothing’s wriiten in stone on these matters , but if it happens, i’m already there.
This is so true. Amanda and I get a request every two days to do shows, and they are competing ones and brand new ones. As well, we now are now charging a minimal fee to make an appearance , as we are losing money doing these shows. People forget that we have two built in travel days to each show on each end and some shows we lose a working week of salary. Sure Amanda sells prints, but with so many shows people are spending money less on the prints and more getting into the door. I am also seeing artists alleys getting bigger, which is awesome, but the shows are now charging these guys to get in and for table space, which cuts into them making a single dime . I don’t know where it is going, but I have taken steps to make available some of the things we sell on Paperfilms.com to balance out things for those that cannot make it to conventions or don’t have enough money to buy things at the time. This and the fact that some cons are asking the talent they invited to ” donate” art to help pay for their show…I feel if you have to do that, you shouldnt be having a convention. Its amazing the difference in treatment between ” star” guests and comic guests. Charity, yes. Paying for your expenses of running a show: no.
In the end, as most of you know, I sit at my table with a couple of books and talk to each and every person that stops by. I sign all their books and do the panels and really enjoy the interaction between us. I love the fans and this is where they go, so its worth every second to see them, but this con a week thing is going to turn into a real business, and for me, when it is a business we are talking about, then I have to start treating it like a business and charge. It’s never my choice, but it shouldnt cost me money as well to help a con get people in the door. I already know a lot of people do not agree with me on this, but its the reality of it for someone like me. I really feel for the guys and gals just trying to break into the business having to fork out money to be seen. I wonder in something should be done on a smaller scale in comic shops, like a once a month ” indy blast” on the same day each month in every comic store in the country. I would love and support that idea.
And yes, I love talking to the fans . I always ask the promoters to put chairs in Front of the booth so we can sit and chat. At Dallas con last year, it was awesome.
There are pro’s & con’s (pun intended) that we as fans need to weigh when it comes to conventions. With being able to purchase passes for the (so-called) “Major” shows becoming more expensive & akin to hitting a lottery jackpot, there are countless comics fans who are being squeezed out of being able to attend a convention.
One could argue that the main reason for this is because Major shows like San Diego, New York, Chicago & WonderCon Anaheim have gone corporate & Hollywood by allowing major entertainment entities to pour cash into those shows, thus allowing them to dictate non-genre programming content and parade a cavalcade of celebrities. As a matter of fact, even the so-called “Mid-market” shows like Phoenix & Emerald City have slowly begun to turn in that direction as well.
However, there’s a HUGE question that we need to ask ourselves: Which is more important, having the opportunity to meet-n-greet our favorite [current] comics creators or having them miss deadlines because they’re too busy attending cons – therefore have our favorite comics either be late or cancelled? As fans, we’d like to have accessibility to our favorite comics creators. But, at what cost?
At the same time, as someone had posted earlier, there’s going to be a saturation point, a “terminal velocity” if you will, that’s going to occur sooner than later.
I agree that there are many great places that could host an enjoyable convention. But, practically speaking, how many out-of-town comics creators & media guests would be willing to travel to someplace that’s not known for tourism? [I'm trying to avoid using city names, so to not offend those who live in those cities]
Back during the 1990′s, there were a plethora of baseball/sports cards shows. It seemed like anywhere there was a room that could (safely & legally) contain more than 100 people was hosting a card show. The only reason those shows existed was because there were a group of people who were preying upon the “feeding frenzy” that [desperate] crazed fans provided.
Today, those shows have practically evaporated. I believe that all of these so-called “comic cons” will eventually share that same fate, sooner than later.
When the dust settles, all of those “small-time, mom-n-pop” conventions will fade away & only the Majors will remain.
Yeah it’s getting very ridiculous, we’ve been doing more cons this year than ever before as Creature Entertainment, and besides the promotional factor we have to make ends meet on these cons, at least to get to the next one, and this watering down of the con cycle may not help too much. People ar ejsut not as excited, and many times the con promoters are the only ones making money.
We’re combating this by doing a type of drink and Draw in Miami, where we have a pop up show at various locations. One place, CineBistro in Dolphin Mall, is restaurant/movie theater. They love having us as guest and we set up outside with our table like a mini artist alley with one vendor in tow. Everyone comes and we make a buck and the theater has a nice event.
Another Place is a beer garden down south, and there we set up tables to pretty much hang out and draw comics and talk shop. It’s really an art party.
These sort of thing don’t take much money ( if any) and is free, it’s just about finding the venue.
I still love cons, and its still the most effective for us to get our books out, but right now it’s not a golden age of cons but a gluttony age. Some still do it right, but overall there are a lot of bottom feeders still going at it out there, so beware!
As one of the “Mom and Pop” organizers I’ll say that sadly, a comics only show, doesn’t bring in the fans to make big shows worth while. This is why most cons go towards the media guests.
Recently my show had managed to get a TON of amazing creators to attend. Perez, Jimenez, Nicieza, Lobdell, Rocafort just to name a few. Our guest list was slammin. We don’t do media guests…just comic creators.
Six months earlier Wizards came to town…their comic guest list…kinda pathetic. That’s not a knock against the talents of the creators attending they were some very talented people. But there was half as many as my show and only two of the names on heir list had myself or others I talked to even heard of before.
But Wizards had Hollywood…we didn’t. Wizard’s pulled in over 40,000 people…we pulled in just under 3,000. They spent only 5 months advertising the show…we spent 12. People paid $60 a day to go to Wizards, I heard complaints that 20 bucks for the whole weekend was too much money. People eagerly pay $20 to get a Walking Dead cast member to sign something and we have trouble selling $10 exclusive prints to fans.
I love that we are a comics only convention…I really do. But when I see the numbers, the attention, and the excitement that these Hollywood-infused conventions are earning, even when fan backlash calls them “inferior fake comic shows”, it becomes harder and harder to stick to our guns and not go for the quick payoff.
I do love the comics-only conventions (just went to NY Comic Fest this past weekend), but I do have to say, selling prints never really made much sense to me. Like, what do people do with them? Maybe you can frame and display a couple of them in your home, but beyond that? I have a sketchbook and I much prefer to pay an artist 20 bucks or whatever for an original sketch rather than buy a print for 10 that will just sit on a table in my house until I decide to recycle it.
ZACH, an average artist can only do about 6-10 pieces a day tops at a con…full sketches. Having prints gets a signed exclusive piece of work to a ton of people that couldn’t …wait in line for a sketch, get on the list, be there early enough to do this and so on. Because you dont collect prints, you have to understand that most artists charge a lot for sketches…and this way, with prints, someone can take home a personalized print, spend time talking to the artist and support them. Its really a basic thing. Its better to make 400 fans happy than make 20.
I’d like to comment on the following excerpt from Jeff’s post:
“I love that we are a comics only convention…I really do. But when I see the numbers, the attention, and the excitement that these Hollywood-infused conventions are earning, even when fan backlash calls them “inferior fake comic shows”, it becomes harder and harder to stick to our guns and not go for the quick payoff.”
First, I’d like to APPLAUD you, Jeff, for hosting a TRUE COMIC BOOK CONVENTION! It sounds like you had a real All-Star line of comics talent!
Having said that, I’d just like to encourage to stick to your guns! Don’t give up! Hold your ground. Don’t cave in.
I know that it would be so much easier to make money by becoming a “WizardWorld” clone. If that’s what you want to become, then by all means go for it. If you’re doing this to make money, then you need to go that route.
I’m very fortunate to have been acquainted with the late Shel Dorf, the man who created & operated the ORIGINAL San Diego Comic-Con. He did so for almost 2 decades.
One of the things that had troubled him was that SDCC had gone away from being about comics & genre programming [sci-fi, horror, fantasy, gaming & anime] and became too Hollywood.
Shel once made a comparison between SDCC & Las Vegas. I’m paraphrasing, but he once said that, as Las Vegas was once small town where people would go to gamble, see a (Sinatra or Wayne Newton) show or get married, Vegas is a now major tourist destination with plush resorts, spas, amusement parks & monster casinos.
SDCC had gone from an event where fans could gather to geek out. Now, it’s all about star-gazing – trying to meet celebrities & have selfies taken with them.
Jeff, your show is an oasis amidst all of the craziness. So, try to stay strong!
If you’d like, I have some ideas & suggestions that might prove helpful to you, should you decide to host another show. Some ideas you might have implemented, some you might no have.
Jeff, you’re assuming that the marketing machine behind Wizard isn’t part of the reason they got 40,000 geusts and you got less than 10% of that. NYCC just had a show that was mostly comics, and it seemed to do pretty well.
@ Jimmy – That assumes you’re going after full sketches. I much prefer a quick, spur of the moment sketch from an artist. Never quite understood why people go for the insanely expensive finished art that guys like Cho and Coipel do at cons. While they look amazing, wouldn’t it make more sense to just commission it privately, rather than spend all your time and all the artist’s time on it?
Jimmy, what I don’t understand is if the convention is using your name to bring people in, in the special guests section, why the heck are you paying anything :). Makes no sense.
Any city which can host a boat-and-auto show can host a pop-con.
Come on! What claim did Charlotte or San Diego have to comics when they started their shows?
Middle America is STARVING for celebrities, for taking part in all the cool stuff they see in media.
Wizard is firmly in the “auto show” business model: bring in some celebrities for autographing, have them stay to buy stuff from retailers.
Myself, I attend shows for the bizarre bazaar (Harlan Ellison wrote for Crazy Magazine?!) and to chat with the people in Artists Alley (and occasionally participate in synchronicity, as happened when Chris Claremont stopped by Peter David’s table last Sunday, and told of his experience as a member of Congress).
Furthermore, there are untapped locales for comics shows… libraries (Ann Arbor), Rotary/VFW halls (Clallam Bay), arts festivals, high schools (Ramapo), fellowship halls (Big Apple) …
Heck! Follow the SF model! San Diego and Dragon*Con started as SF shows… “Big Tent” shows…offer a variety of programming to a variety of geekdoms to maximize attendance. If a city can support a SF con, it can support a pop-con! (And, yes, Omacon in the 80s… we flew in a few guests from the coasts, but many were regional professionals. Church basement to hotel convention center.)
Tampa’s comi-con blew up last year. FOREVER I was saying wouldn’t it be cool if it was at our great convention center rather than in these small hotel like the Radison and last year it was and had lines around the block trying to get in. Comics as a pop cultural phenomenon have never been hotter.