By: Nicholas Eskey

Typically, around this time each year downtown San Diego is well underway in a temporary face lift for our very own Comic-Con International. As one of the largest comic and popular media conventions in the world, Comic-Con International has long outgrown the confines of the Downtown Convention Center and has been steadily extending its reach like the tentacles of Hydra (Hail Hydra!). True, most of the parties and events have no affiliation with CCI, but that hasn’t stopped the many vendors who want to participate in the festivities from finding a way to capitalize.

This last Saturday I decided to venture out and see all the early changes for myself. I was quite surprised with what I found.

Though the convention is less than two weeks out, a number of large displays are normally already installed or nearly completed. This year I could hardly find anything in reference to CCI.

Hyatt featuring All Star Game Advertising
Hyatt featuring All Star Game Advertising

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There’sactually a lot of other events happening in San Diego this month. Yesterday was the Baseball All Star Game, held at Petco Park, and two days before that was the All Color 5K Run being held for the baseball game. San Diego, aside from being a military town, is also a sporty town. We love our Padres, our Chargers, and even Gulls hockey team. The area around Petco Park in downtown had many signs and advertisements for the All Star Game. You can bet most of the bars also had something in the way of an All Star tie in.20160710DowntownSD_0012

Not only that, but at the end of the week will be San Diego Pride. Though the parade and festival will be centered in the Hillcrest and Balboa Park areas, there will be a lot of focus placed on it. Also, hotels and bars will also see an impact throughout this weekend as Pride parties abound. It’s no wonder why I couldn’t find much in the way of Comic-Con International displays, since the city doesn’t want to take the focus away from this other money making events.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t any changes to downtown in regards to the convention. The MTS trolley system is in full Comic-Con mode with much of their train cars wrapped up in Conan O’Brien advertising (since he’ll be live at the Comic-Con again) and a few odd ones featuring shows like as “Son of Zorn.” Reason for this though is that the skin covers for those trains take a long time to put adhere, so we locals have seen them already for the better part of a month (and most likely will for another month after CCI). On my travels through the city, I even came across a building adorned with the “Funko” name on its exterior. Looking through the windows of the historic “Cracker Factory Building,” I saw human sized Captain America vinyls and a sign toting the 75th anniversary of the hero.

The Olde Cracker Factory featuring a Funko Logo
The Olde Cracker Factory featuring a Funko Logo

There is most likely more installations like this throughout downtown; exhibits that need more than a week to be put together, and so are completed early. I hear that the San Diego Airport just placed mannequins throughout its terminals that feature all styles of Steampunk Cosplay.

Once the last of our other events are out of way, I don’t doubt there will be PR teams and companies frantically putting together their themed displays. I’ll revisit downtown in a few days and see how the changes have progressed.