Here's an article about the announcement that WonderCon 2016 will be held in Los Angeles and as you can see, it gives dates of March 25-27. Here's the first part of the piece…
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) – Next year, cosplay and Hollywood will collide when WonderCon moves from Anaheim to Los Angeles. "Los Angeles is honored to have been selected as the destination for WonderCon 2016," Mayor Eric Garcetti said. "We look forward to establishing a long-term partnership with Comic-Con International, the presenter, and helping them establish a home base in L.A. We anticipate the show to be highly attended and to set the precedent for future successful Comic-Con events in L.A."
Translation: "We really, really want to steal Comic-Con from San Diego." I doubt that's possible but I do think they're going to give WonderCon a great deal and a lot of cooperation. You do that kind of thing when you're courting. Unmentioned anywhere in the piece, however, is the reason that WonderCon is moving to L.A. and that it's a one-year contract.
The Anaheim Convention Center is expanding, adding 200,000 square feet of space and 1,400 parking spots. There will also be numerous other upgrades and additions, including a climate-controlled pedestrian bridge that will connect to the second floor of the existing facility. This limits the number and size of conventions that can be held there in 2016 and there is no room for WonderCon. That's why they're staging next year's close enough for me to get there by bus — which I may do. If you think parking in San Diego is difficult…
The expansion in Anaheim is supposed to be completed in "early 2017." That may or may not be in time for that year's WonderCon but whenever it's done, L.A. will have to compete with a much-improved Anaheim Convention Center…and compete not just for WonderCon or Comic-Con. Anaheim isn't spending $180 million to keep servicing the same conventions. They're gunning to steal other cons and probably have their hearts set on several that now book the L.A. facility. The Anaheim Convention Center was already larger than the Los Angeles Convention Center. It will become even bigger and, presumably, nicer. Of course you know, as Groucho and Bugs Bunny both said, this means war.
Depending on what magnitude of Hollywood promotions it attracts, WonderCon in Los Angeles could be huge. This is by no means a prediction but I had an interesting fantasy yesterday. Some of the facts argue against this so let's just leave reality aside and treat this as highly speculative fiction.
Let's imagine that many of the big TV-movie studios see WonderCon L.A. as a great place to promote upcoming product, even more so than Comic-Con. They decide March is a much better time than late July to promote the blockbuster movies they have coming out in summer. They also realize it's easier (and cheaper) to get cast and crew members to L.A. than it is to San Diego. You may have to charter a plane to get Michael Fassbender to Comic-Con. He can get to WonderCon in Los Angeles by calling an Uber car. I may do that, too.
The Comickaze convention held there last November at the L.A. Convention Center drew a reported 65,000 attendees. I can easily imagine WonderCon topping that. I can even imagine it topping Comic-Con…thought not by all that much just due to space restrictions. I don't know how many people it can hold but the L.A.C.C. has 720,000 square feet of exhibition space. (The San Diego Convention Center has 615,700. I keep meeting people who think if Comic-Con relocated to L.A., it could be twice or three times its present size with wider aisles and everyone who wants to go could go. I'll bet you it would still sell out in a few hours, be jam-packed every day and leave 100,000+ people unable to get admission.)
Okay, so let's say WonderCon is huge in my town. Maybe that success would keep it in L.A. Maybe they'd move it back to Anaheim in a year or two, figuring that much of that success would follow it there to a bigger, more modern facility. A lot of that would depend on the terms offered.
But then what would happen with Comic-Con?
In my little fantasy, the big exhibitors and studios gravitate to Wondercon…not all of them but enough to downsize Comic-Con a bit. It would still sell out, maybe in twenty days instead of twenty minutes. It would still fill all the hotels in San Diego for miles around. You still wouldn't be able to get a table at the Old Spaghetti Factory without an hour wait. There just wouldn't be quite so many people who want to attend the con and can't. The demand would be more the size of the convention center that houses the event.
And if that happened…Hey, who knows? The Comic-Con might even be a little more about comic books. I don't think it will ever be mainly about them again because I don't think the comic book industry will ever be mainly about comic books again. But if WonderCon did lure away some of the movie and TV promotions, Comic-Con could be a bit more about comics.
As I said, this is not something I'm expecting. I just got to thinking: You have Comic-Con in San Diego and WonderCon in either Anaheim or Los Angeles. Isn't there something wrong here? The one that's more about Hollywood is the one that's farther from Hollywood. Maybe some form of natural selection will cause each over time to trade emphasis.
Aah, forget it. It's not going to go like that and I have better things to think about than this. And since it's bedtime, better fantasies to muse about. Good night.