In the press release announcing there'll be no in-person Comic-Con International this July in San Diego, the folks who run the con told us they were happy to announce — well, here, I'll quote what they were so happy to announce…
…we are happy to announce that San Diego Comic Convention is planning to present a three-day in-person convention in San Diego in November. At this time, we are still working on specific details as to attendance capacity, badge cost, and related information, and those details will be forthcoming.
This has led to many of you writing me to ask what I can divulge about this November event. I probably shouldn't reveal this but the folks behind the con are still working on specific details as to attendance capacity, badge cost, and related information, and those details will be forthcoming.
That's all I know. Honest. And this doesn't bother me because one of the ways I've kept whatever sanity and balance I've somehow managed to retain during The Pandemic has been by discounting all predictions beyond about the week after next. I recognize that all of them are guesses — occasionally semi-educated ones but guesses, nonetheless. They might turn out to be true but so might my hunches as to next week's winning lottery numbers. You can drive yourself banana-wackie by trying to plan for specific dates right now.
I'm getting e-mails and questions from folks who are asking, "Hey, if Texas and Mississippi can open up fully, why can't Comic-Con?" Well, first of all, it remains to be seen how wise Texas and Mississippi are being. But secondly, it ain't that easy.
One fellow who apparently is desperate to attend a comic convention a.s.a.p. wrote me that he went to the website for the San Diego Convention Center and looked at the calendar they have posted there of upcoming events. There, he saw several listings for conventions that are clearly not Comic-Con events but he found this: A "Private Event: Convention with Trade Show" for the weekend of 11/19 thru 11/21. It estimates a turnout of 7000 and says it's "Not Open to Public."
That doesn't sound like Comic-Con to me. Comic-Con is open to the public and I find it hard to believe they're talking about something that small. But based on his deduction, this fellow tells me he's booked a non-refundable AirBnB room in San Diego for that weekend. Even if he's right about the dates, he's gambling a lot to assume he'll be able to score a badge if only 7000 are available.
More interesting to me is that the calendar there shows real, non-mystery conventions booked there beginning June 9…quite a few of them, all with capacities below 12,000 until the end of August. After that, they don't go much higher except one for 33,000 at the beginning of September. We also see on the Cancellations page, everything before June 9 listed as canceled, postponed or virtual.
If you're going to try to figure this out — and I doubt you have enough info to do so or that any of it is that firm — keep this in mind: Like most convention centers, the one in San Diego was built to house many simultaneously. They can section off portions of it and move walls around to create the proper-sized spaces for up to seven (7) separate gatherings at the same time. Comic-Con with its 135,000 attendance is one of the few that ever uses the whole facility.
What's happening with most convention centers around the nation is that they're looking at opening cautiously and incrementally with small gatherings being scheduled, in some cases on a highly-tentative basis. Las Vegas, which depends on convention trade more than any other city, just announced they'll start allowing some (not all) conventions with a 1,000 attendee maximum this month. Before that announcement, no conventions were scheduled in the town before May 1. The Las Vegas Advisor says…
…the Tobacco Plus Expo is scheduled for May 12-14, but can't get approval from Clark County until May 1, which puts the organizers in a whale of a bind. The big World of Concrete show is scheduled for June 8-10. Normally, it attracts upwards of 60,000 conventioneers, but we'll see how many are allowed in the next couple of months.
What I'm trying to point out here is that having Comic-Con in any size is not just a matter of the convention organizers looking at the latest COVID numbers and saying, "Hey, let's take a gamble and do it!" They need a place to hold the thing. They also need a good selection of hotels and restaurants that are functioning at full capacity and there are probably a hundred other necessities including security and insurance.
But first and foremost, they need the venue and they need it to be legal to hold an event of some size. As we know, the San Diego Convention Center has been used as a homeless shelter for close to a year now. It is slowly turning back into a convention center. Back on February 11 when we last checked, there were 856 people living there. Today, the number is 735.
Reopening that huge facility will take time and it will not happen all at once. The announcement by Comic-Con that they won't be holding a full-sized event there this July is simple recognition that the building won't be fully available by then. There also seem to be some financial problems and, as I say, you also need the surrounding community to be ready to receive us.
Me, I'm taking the view that I don't know when the hell anything will be open the way we'd like it to be. There may be Comic-Con in some form or size this November but I ain't clearing my calendar or booking my room for it until they say it's on…and even then, I'll assume it's probable, not definite.
Don't drive yourself too crazy. Wait and see. Wait and see.