Conventions

WizardWorld has announced a new Chicago-based show with the Wizard World Comic Con Presents Fan Fest Chicago on March 7-8 at Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont. In contrast to pricier Wizard shows, the event will be $25 for the weekend and $15 for either day, and people who sign up for VP or four day registration at the regular August show get in free.

Some details on the logistics of the new venue for this year's MoCCA Festival have been announced. The show itself is moving to Center...

It's possible you missed it last year, but New York Comic-Con has a secondary convention, starting last year in early Summer, called Special Edition. Touted as the comics-only convention for New York (and greater) fans, initial response was mixed. It was announced late, but the guest lineup was strong. It fell on Father's Day weekend, but the tickets weren't expensive. It seemed like people were optimistic about the first iteration of the event. Unfortunately, attendance wasn't exactly what you'd call great. Saturday was acceptable according to a number of exhibitors I talked to but Sunday was completely dead, maybe 200-300 attendees over the full day. I saw many exhibitors pack up early to beat the traffic home - not a heartening sight. I wasn't sure if they'd continue the event, but hey - with ReedPop's bankroll, why not?

Might Comic-Con International actually move from San Diego? Comic-Con International has yet to sign a contract for 2017 and 2018, and it looks uncertain whether...

Despite a Twitter non-denial denial, from owner Renee George, Wizard World has confirmed they have acquired the long running Pittsburgh Comicon, to be held September 11-13 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. “We are excited to have acquired the long-standing and popular Pittsburgh Comicon from Renee,” said John Macaluso, Wizard World CEO. “We are excited to inject the Wizard World flavor in the Pittsburgh market, a city we’ve been wanting to expand to for many years. We are looking forward to seeing all our fans in September!”

The Small Press Expo, to be held this year Sept. 19-20, isn't a fully curated show. About half the booths are grandfathered in, but the rest are open in a "lottery" that is nerve-wracking but ultimately fair. While curated shows like TCAF and CAB present a sleek line-up, it's good to have some element of the random for one premiere CAF. REgistration is open from February 1-15 and the rest of the process is laid out in an announcement. "What to expect when you're expecting to table."

Last fall, we here at The Beat teamed up with the awesome folks at The Devastator to put together a survey for convention exhibitors. With all the controversy over who is spending and what cons are con games, it seemed like time to seriously upgrade this survey. And you responded, with more than 100 people taking the survey, giving results on the top cons and CAFs that revealed average sales and average amount of satisfaction with each show. In case you've never heard of them, The Devastator is a humor/comic magazine based in LA that features sharp satire and art by founders Geoffrey Golden and Amanda Meadows as well as people from The Onion, the Daily Show, Adult Swim, Marvel and more. The result, as crunched by the Devastator's staff, has some eye-opening statistics. You can read the entire report right here, and see some of the Devastator team's own comments below, but here are a few of my own eye-openers:

Brought to you by Publishers Weekly, it's More To Come, the weekly podcast of comics news, interviews and discussion with Calvin Reid, Kate Fitzsimons...

By Bruce Lidl Lost somewhat in the initial burst of news from last week’s ImageExpo was the announcement of a new Image Humble Bundle offering,...

In an announcement on the Emerald City Comicon site, it's been announced that the show is joining the ReedPOP family of conventions. As announced, this is not s straight out acquisition, as the ECCC team will continue running the Seattle-based show, and also work on existing Reed shows, presumably including C2E2, New York Comic-Con, PAX and so on.

Back during Labor Day weekend, the Library of Congress hosted the 14th annual National Book Festival at the Washington Convention Center.  We posted the notice...

By Bruce Lidl As has become a tradition at Image Comic’s semi-annual event, the announcements of upcoming titles came fast and furious today at ImageExpo....