It's five thirty, on Sunday, and Con is over.
I am speaking, of course, about the San Diego Comic-Con International, the largest convention of its type held in America, and one of the largest in the world. Last year 62,000 people attended during the four (actually five) days of the convention. This year some observers were anticipating twice that figure. A hundred thousand people, all coming to San Diego to celebrate the imaginative arts.
It's too many.
I never anticipated saying that. Even now, I am surprised at myself. Heretofore, I've always been quietly gratified by the continued growth of the convention. Although the comic book industry has been in a slow decline for several years now, every year the San Diego Con gets larger. It's reassuring. An art form that I love may not, after all, be dying.
I've been coming to this convention for over a decade, and during that time have seen plenty of change. The area of downtown San Diego around the convention center has gone from being a post-urban clearance wasteland of vacant lots and army surplus stores to a high-rent profusion of glass skyscrapers and trendy restaurants. (Had I been coming to the Con for another decade, I would have gotten to experience the pre-urban clearance boarded-up fleabag hotels and crime-threatening streets that preceded the vacant lots. Can't say I regret missing that.) The first year, Con shared the convention center with several other events, including a Ford Motor convention.
That was the last year the Comic Con shared the convention center. After that, when we came to town, it was ours. Even when they doubled the size of the building, we filled it. The growth of the event has been astounding, year on year.
But it's not growth from within the industry. The number of comic book publishers and comic book retailers at the convention has stayed roughly the same. The Con has instead grown through assimilation, luring in other related groups of people by its sheer size like Jupiter pulls in comets. These days, large portions of the dealer's room are occupied by producers of anime, by sellers of action figures, by movie studios, by movie and television series fan clubs, by role-playing game companies, by collectible card game makers, and so on. This year as far as I could tell the major addition was the number and size of the video game makers, but every year some new, related group has come along to swell the size of the convention.
Before now, I was all for it. Although half of the additions (collectible card games, action figures) have held no interest for me, they were still my people. Geeks. That's the major reason I come to the convention - not not for the swag, but to hang out with my people. To just be among them, among thousands and thousands of my people who are all having a good time. People actively enjoying the same things I do. Not sports fans, not frat boys, not barflies (though the barfly/comic book creator crossover is, um, impressive), but geeks. People who take pleasure in using their imaginations.
So I was happy that the Con kept expanding. Twenty thousand, thirty, fifty, sixty - the lines were long, but that's part of the experience. I've camped out in the line for the masquerade from the very first Con I attended. Lines are an integral part of any convention - they let you truly understand just how many of your people you are currently with. Lines are fine.
Well, as long as they work. And this year, for the first time, there were lines for panels and events that didn't work. Couldn't work. People who waited for an event and simply had no chance of attending it. Because there were just too many people.
It's like the old Yogi Berra line about the restaurant being so crowded no one goes there any more. It's funny, and it's nonsensical, and yet it's true. Popularity is its own curse.
Let me step back. This isn't a problem - yet. This year was fine. But if the Con continues to grow, the crowding is only going to get worse. The event has hit a certain point, where the number of people has become unwieldy in a way that can't be accomodated. We've hit the point where we have run out of new ways of shuffling people around, and giving everyone a fair go. It's becoming unfeasible. To keep the event enjoyable, something will have to give.
And, always willing to assign blame, I would suggest that Hollywood is that something. The events that were over-full and turned people away this year were all movie related. People are coming to the Con just to see Big Stars - not to see comic books, or the people that make them. People are coming to hear Hollywood gossip, and see Hollywood promos. Not to hear about DC, or Dark Horse, or Terry Moore.
To put a lid on the Con's growth - something I never anticipated espousing - we need to show Hollywood the door.
I don't think it will happen. (In fact, I'm sure it won't. Money - in the form of cheap marketing to tens of thousands of Key Demographic people - is already in the picture.) And I don't particularly like it - I enjoy surprise appearances by, say, Ian McKellen as much as the next fanboy. I love movies and television. I enjoy them marketing to me. But they aren't comics. If the Comic Con becomes Hollywood Promo South, we're going to lose something.
Ourselves.
- Sun Ra