A reader named Paul Lewis sends this message that I figured was worth a public reply…
Should I still want to go to the San Diego CC? Even though I've never been there before, the horror stories I'm hearing make me want to pass. Has the Con simply outgrown the convention center and San Diego? What I don't understand is why the con is held in a city that isn't a major hub airport. I wish Chicago or Dallas was the site of the industry's largest convention, then the airfare would be reasonable for all.
Fast answer: No. Do not let any "horror stories" stop you from attending next year's Comic Con International. Most of them spring from not planning ahead. I mean, if you decide to go at the last minute, you're going to pay serious kruggerands for your lodging and wind up with an ugly commute. But the travel problems are no worse than vacationing anywhere in Southern California in July, and the tales of a crowded Exhibit Hall pertain mainly to a few hours on Saturday when you ought to be upstairs watching one of my panels. (Someone sent a tip: Forget about seeing the middle of the hall on Saturday…but things aren't bad on the far ends.)
I don't think the con has outgrown the San Diego facilities but obviously, if each year is 20% above the previous, that day will come. A lot of the talk this year about the crowds had to do with fretting about what will happen then. Perhaps it is nothing to worry about. Not that long ago, if you'd told people it would reach 80,000-100,000, they'd have predicted an Armadgeddon that has never come to pass. (In fact, I heard several comments this year that on-site registration never went smoother, and I did not see any block-length lines as were common in '03.) The folks who run the convention have proven very resourceful at crowd control, and I know they're working on it. So please don't let anything I say here discourage you from attending. Just do a little planning, get your room early and understand going in that there is no way you can see everything.
Why the con is in San Diego is a long story involving a gent named Shel Dorf, who founded it in 1970 and who lived (and still lives) in San Diego. For a long time it was there because Shel was there and because the other folks who operated the convention were there. You do have major conventions in other cities and there's kind of an understanding among some cons not to invade one another's turf. There's also the matter of facilities. The Comic-Con International is very important to San Diego and the folks there in charge of luring conventions to the city offer terms that probably make it appealing to stay. You can't just up and move a convention to another burg. You have to find available space on the desired dates, then negotiate a thousand different things ranging from hotel prices to facility fees and civic support. That is sometimes difficult to do.
I should also add that while airfare to San Diego may not be as cheap for some as it is to Chicago, a pretty substantial percentage of Comic-Con attendance is folks driving down from Los Angeles, including a generous portion of the TV/movie biz. Take that away and you'd have a very different convention…maybe not the industry's largest and maybe not too dissimilar from others that already exist. Even though I may carp about traffic on the 5, there's a reason so many of us make that drive each year.