Japanese doujinshi con sets new attendance record.
Comiket 72 took place from August 17th – 19th. According to Mantan Web, over 170,000 fans attended Comiket 72 on day 1, 180,000 attended on day 2 and 200,000 on day 3, resulting in a total attendance of 550,000 – the highest attendance in Comiket history.
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Convention attendance numbers get bandied-about in an attempt to convey show size. What needs to be addressed before we give these number too much credence and determine who’s is actually larger, is exactly how these attendance numbers are arrived at.
I believe most arrive at a body count using physical attendance per event day and then simply add them together for each day of the event. I may be wrong, but I believe Comic-Con International arrives at their head-count using a very different, extremely conservative formula. They count unique attendees!! This means a person attending all four days of the show, increases the attendance tally by just one, not by four as would be touted using the other counting methods employed.
If this is correct, this could mean that Comic-Con International attendance numbers could easily be radically higher. Can representatives for the shows (CCI, Reed, Wizard, etc.), comment on this and let us all know exactly how you arrive at your attendance numbers?
The overlap between visitors for the three days is not hugely significant, as each day is divided by genre. There’s a boys/girls day, and an adult day. The total unique visitors probably isn’t 550,000, but is shouldn’t be very far off from it either.
Other measures of comparison worth noting…
-According to their own website, Summer Comiket has 35,000 exhibiting circles.
-The event is held at Tokyo International Exhibition Center, which has floor space that is about 4.5 times larger than San Diego Convention Center. Comiket uses about 2/3 of the available convention space, I believe…
If I recall correctly (I could be worng) SDCC’s official attendance for 2006 was 120,000 for all four days.
Comiket is reporting 170,000 a DAY.
That’s still a big difference regardless of how you count the meberships.
Comic-Con should consider this rule, from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comiket: “Taking pictures of cosplayers outside of the Cosplay Square is forbidden.”
Was there last weekend – was crazy just crazy.