Comic-Con attendees watch clips of "Resident Evil: Afterlife." (Kevin Winter / Getty Images)
Comic-Con International is staying in San Diego, and a press conference is scheduled for Friday at the San Diego Convention Center where local leaders will symbolically wipe the worried sweat from their collective brow and pat one another on the back for saving the day and keeping the civic bonanza in the city where it was born more than 40 years ago.
But was there every really a chance that Comic-Con was going to pack up its cape and leave? I suppose it was possible, but to my eyes, much of the public hand-wringing was pure kabuki. This was about getting a better deal, not planning a divorce.
Downtown Los Angeles simply doesn’t have enough hotel rooms to compete with San Diego. Anaheim — well, I can just imagine how thrilled all the other Hollywood studios would be if Disney essentially got home-field advantage as far as the venue where upcoming special-effects films and animated movies come to flirt with the public. Las Vegas? Sure, maybe, but Comic-Con is the big dog in San Diego and treated as such. In Sin City, the signature pop-culture expo in America would be just another weekend in a town where the neon never dims.
Here’s the press releases from Comic-Con organizers:
Comic-Con International: San Diego (Comic-Con), the largest comics convention of its kind in the world, today announced it will be staying in San Diego for the foreseeable future.
Comic-Con reached a self-imposed attendance limit at the San Diego Convention Center (SDCC) in 2007 and has had to cap attendance at approximately 125,000 people each year since. In looking at ways to better accommodate the growing demand from attendees and exhibitors, the nonprofit organization considered proposals for a move to larger facilities in Los Angeles or Anaheim after the expiration of its SDCC lease in 2012. This decision keeps Comic-Con in San Diego through 2015.
“We are grateful for the tireless efforts all three cities put into to their proposals,” said David Glanzer, Comic-Con’s director of marketing and public relations. “In the end, we feel this decision is the best for all those who attend Comic-Con and for the organization itself. We are happy that the community has worked with us to ensure that we remain here.”
Comic-Con was first held in 1970 at the U.S. Grant Hotel, where it attracted 300 people. As the event grew, subsequent homes included the downtown El Cortez Hotel in the 1970s and the San Diego Convention and Performing Arts Center in the 1980s. Comic-Con moved to the then newly built SDCC in 1991. Comic-Con celebrated its 41st year in 2010. The San Diego Convention Center Corporation has scheduled a press conference for Friday, October 1 at 11:45 a.m. at Lobby E of the convention center.
See you next summer in San Diego.
– Geoff Boucher
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Our legion of super contributors is led by Hero Complex editor Gina McIntyre and 
Readers of your fine column should also reading the comments in the comics industry blog The Beat for some interesting deets about Comicon staying in SD.
Also, let me repeat a question I posed in the Beat forum that nobody in the media or anybody with any funnybook gravitas has had the nerve to openly ask: How in the world can an organization running comics shows as large as SDCC and Wondercon ever be considered a NON-PROFIT? What’s the diff between the Reeds and Wizards of the world running multimedia pop culture shows, and the Comicon organization running SDCC, Wondercon and APE? The answer: Not a whole lot from where I sit.
Why stay in San Diego? Not enough hotels, are you kidding me? LA LIVE???
I stopped going to Comicon after the ridiculous "sold out" bs they keep flaunting to drive attendance up. Don't they realize it sells out because it's grown so big that SD is ill equipped to handle it? Oh no of course not…..
Anime expo at the LA convention center is a little more than half the size of comicon and the past 2 years have been wonderful. I do not look forward to a 2 hour drive to SD just to wait in a 3-4 hour line to get my badge. Forget it, stay in SD for all I care I won't be there.
This is to answer Wayne Beamer's question…
The Comic-Con is a non-profit organization. That's a legal status that imposes all sorts of restrictions on what the entity can do, how it can spend its money, etc. The organizers of the con cannot just pocket the profits or spend it all on hookers. They are paid controlled salaries and for the most part, they plow the profits back into the work of the organization. I've been working with them for years and they're scrupulous in abiding by the laws that govern a non-profit organization and what it can and cannot do. The Reeds and Wizards of the world are not restricted by those laws.
… and maybe get new computers so they can handle the crush of outsiders who try to buy admission tickets?!
They need new computers. my son and i may be shut out for the first time in 7 years due to my inability to spend another morning (already wasted an a.m. the first time tix went on sale). ridiculous ineptitude.