Very shortly after she sent that email, I had a high level person from the LVCVA on the phone to me, DURING THE BUSIEST CONVENTION WEEK OF HIS YEAR, offering to assist me in any way possible.

San Diego sneers at us. Las Vegas really, really wants all 120k+ of us.

I’m just sayin’ is all.

These 15,000 map-muddlers generated some $46.5 million in economic impact for San Diego in 2006. Comic-con? A mere $32.1 million. Doing the math, a geographer computer nerd spends $3100 in San Diego. A stormtrooper, a scant $267 (based on an estimate of 120,000 attendees in 2006.)

Something about these numbers seems a bit wack. For instance, say only 20,000 of those 120,000 stayed in hotels. Let’s say they averaged $1000 for their hotel stays. That alone is $20 million. Now, say each of those 120,000 people had subsisted on a single can of tuna fish a day from Ralph’s. That’s another million dollars right there.

If anything it’s a matter of where the money goes. It’s the difference between dining at Osetra Watergrill or running over to Tin Fish.

If one were to discuss hotels, I think all of San Diego County benefits from the weekend of Con. When rooms in Hotel Circle and as far out as National City and Chula Vista get booked it kinda spreads the wealth outside of downtown.

” The Bio International Convention in San Diego, a gathering of the biotechnology industry, with one-sixth as many attendees, produces about double Comic-Con’s $41.5 million in economic impact on the city.”

In fact, it won’t be in San Diego until 2012, if it’s in San Diego at all.

http://www.bio2007.org/Save%20the%20Date%202008-2011.pdf

So, $82 mil for one year, as opposed to what the con brings in year after year?

I give Cieply the benefit of the doubt that neither he nor his editors caught that big difference between and “s” and a “d” after “produce.” “Produces” suggests the Bio Int. show happens in SD annually, “produced” is the accurate word for a how that isn’t happening in San Diego again for some years, if at all.

Again, I challenge either Cieply, the writer of this article, to cite the source of his numbers, or the City of San Diego to show the numbers, because I call bullshit.

Hahahaha, man, I’d better have some breakfast.

And whatever the Comic Con attendee is spending is spent largely inside the convention centre on retailers who are going to leave town with the money.

Torsten: Make it a destination. Really? More people need to be attracted to San Diego during Comic Con? You think that less parking and worse traffic jams on Harbor Drive would make the event more endearing to San Diegans?

As a Calgarian who suffers through 10 days of the drunken redneck Mardi Gras that is Stampede every year (which is estimated to contribute $300 million to the local economy, yes three hundred and forty-five million), I can sympathise with San Diegans, and assure you that tacking a fun, family-oriented parade and other events onto it won’t make it any more attractive to those who are annoyed by it. Spreading the party around only makes it more obnoxious to those who are not interested.

Some solutions: Hand out pre-printed Comic-Con coupons. When an attendee makes a purchase at a restaurant, you fill in the amount spent and hand it to the cashier. Maybe allow the retailer to redeem the coupons for ad space in next year’s convention guide.

Wednesday night, hold a costume parade open to everyone. Model it on New York’s Village Halloween parade. Have it end at the baseball stadium parking lot, with vendors, activities, fun for the whole family.

Us cool kids know about the San Diego Comic-Con. What needs to be done is to brand and link it to the city of San Diego, so that everyone knows about it. Make it a destination, like New Year’s in Times Square, or Halloween in Key West.

The Con should also program more events outside the confines of the Convention Center, and at various dates throughout the year. This creates goodwill with the local citizens, which in turn creates goodwill with area politicians, pundits, and leaders.