Sunday at WonderCon was a bit less crowded than the first two days. An exhibitor there said something interesting to me about that. He claimed he made more sales when the room was at around 70-80% of capacity than he did when it was at 100%. "When it starts getting really packed in there," he said, "people can't and don't see as much of the con. They skip crowded aisles, get tired out sooner, go down aisles without being able to see half of what's there. When it's like this, most people can wander by and see what I'm selling." Makes sense, I guess. Even when it was at capacity though, it didn't seem that difficult to me to get around in that hall.
A lot of the talk was not about what WonderCon was but what it may be. Based on this past weekend, it certainly seems to have the potential to turn into a near-clone of the Comic-Con International in San Diego. I don't think it could ever be quite as big. For one thing, in San Diego, we pretty much take over that whole part of the city — every hotel, every restaurant, etc. Around the Anaheim Convention Center, we could never be anything but a supplement to the Disneyland traffic. On the other hand, if I were a publicist promoting a new movie or TV show, I bet it would be a lot easier to get my stars and/or showrunners down to Anaheim for a day as opposed to San Diego.
The folks who run both conventions plan to continue trying to run both conventions — perhaps with a greater distance from each other in dates — and to re-establish WonderCon in San Francisco at some other point in the year. Personally, I'd be happy to do Anaheim in March, San Diego in July and San Francisco in November. They'd also need to squeeze the annual A.P.E. — Alternative Press Expo — in there somewhere.
My favorite moment of the weekend? Well, I really enjoyed the presentation I did today about Writing for Animation. They scheduled it for a room I thought was way too big but we had enough folks there that it didn't seem empty at all. It was just me babbling on about the cartoon business for 55 minutes but from the stage, I saw a lot of expressions that seemed to suggest, "Hey, this might be useful." I hope it was. I don't like to discourage anyone but I do think it helps to knock down the kind of optimism that is based on fantasy, not reality. It's real easy to tell beginners and wanna-bes what they want to hear, especially if (as I don't), you're also selling classes on how to attain that particular dream. Personally, I always prefer to understand what I'm up against. Then the points in which you can find reason for optimism become ever so much more real and it's easier to capitalize on them.
I also enjoyed wandering around outside the hall where there were some food trucks and a general party/gathering in progress. There were many folks in costume, including an Aquaman whose outfit made him look so gay, he should have been lounging on the bottom of Elton John's swimming pool.
There were a few folks with large yellow placards warning all to "Repent and Accept Jesus." I saw one gent saying over and over to people who snubbed him or made rude remarks, "We're not the Westboro Baptist Idiots, honest" and I couldn't resist asking, "What have those folks done for your cause?" He said, "Set us back to the stone age." I said, "You mean, before Jesus?" He chuckled and said, "I guess so." I have a certain limited respect for anyone who cares about a belief to make that kind of effort but I find it hard to believe that any human being has ever considered accepting Jesus Christ or any religious premise because of anything done by a guy with a sign standing outside a comic book convention amidst people dressed like Star Wars troopers and members of the Legion of Super-Heroes.
I'll probably think of other good moments in the days to come. And I'll tell you about an interesting lunch I had on the way home.