Greeting from the Windy City. The Diamond Retailer Summit has returned to Chicago for the first time since 2013, and the event kicked off last night with a PACKED reception. Everyone was commenting on the enthusiasm and turnout among retailers. There have been open bars at retailer events before so even that didn’t count. Was it the midwest location making the event accessible to a crowd that hadn’t attended in a while? Excitement over comics in general? Whatever it was, things got off with a bang.
While personnel from many the front of the catalog and emerging companies were mingling with retailers – Boom!, DC, AfterShock, Lion Forge, and so on – one topic of conversation was Marvel’s presentation at the summit. The summit has a new format this year – instead of presenting at the dinner event, Marvel and DC have stand alone one hour presentations. However, in a break with tradition, Marvel’s will be closed to the press.
Although many speculated that this was in response to the negative fall out from the last time a Marvel retailer event was reported on, this was in the works even prior to that. Some speculated that Marvel would be showing some exclusive movie footage – they’ve done this at previous retailer events, and Marvel Studios has been showing off a lot of movie material in recent days.
We’ll be back with news from all the presentation we CAN attend later in the day. Keep it locked to The Beat!
