Comic-Con is in danger of leaving its San Diego birthplace for a larger home, spurring local tourism leaders to do all they can to keep the four-day show in town.
Sign On San Diego reports that the prospect of losing a bonanza worth tens of millions of dollars in local spend each year has persuaded hoteliers to double the number of rooms they commit to Comic-Con and provide free meeting space. After 2012, the event, held each July at the San Diego Convention Center, will be free to leave town.
If Comic-Con departs, so would its 126,000 attendees. A task force, made up of local officials is leading an aggressive campaign to remind Comic-Con organizers just how well-loved they are. Whether such overtures are enough to stave off a competing bid from Anaheim is unclear, says the report. Anaheim’s convention center offers roughly a half-million more square feet than San Diego’s, which was last expanded in 2001.
San Diego’s proposal was crafted after meetings with Comic-Con organizers to assess what issues they wanted addressed. According to the report, the biggest issue is a shortage of exhibit space and hotel rooms with discounted rates exclusive to attendees in San Diego.
In response, San Diego’s three waterfront hotels have committed to providing roughly 300,000 square feet of their meeting space free of charge in 2013 through 2015. In addition, the Convention Center Corp. is proposing to increase the number of dedicated convention hotel rooms from 7,000 to 14,000.
Although a citizens task force last year endorsed a $753 million proposal to expand the convention center, there is no guarantee that will happen.
“Since expansion is a process we’re all exploring, it would be a shame for an organization that’s had so much success over the last 40 years to jump and leave,” Sandra Moreno, the center’s executive vice president of sales and marketing, told Sign On San Diego. “I’m hopeful the Comic-Con board will stay the course until they see how the expansion will work out. We would be very, very sad to lose Comic-Con. They are an iconic event here that brings tremendous media coverage. It’s a match made in heaven.”
