Continuing the trend of mid-size cons joining larger event organizations, MegaCon, the very popular yearly event held in Orlando each year, has been sold to Informa, a multinational media event company that previously purchased the FanExpo events in Canada and the Dallas Comic Con. Widely admired show runner Beth Widera will remain as Executive Director.
The show, which is expected to draw about 70,000 people this year, kicks off this weekend at the Orlando Convention Center.
MegaCon began in 1993, and was briefly operated by CrossGen, the renegade Florida-based comics company. WIdera pruchased it from CrossGen in 2003 and it’s become a very popular and, by all accounts, superbly run show since.
The long rumored move comes a few weeks after it was announced that ReedPOP had purchased ECCC. As noted by ICv2, the trend of larger convention entities purchasing mid-sized shows seems to be in full swing, with ReedPOP, Informa, Wizard World and Advanstar (Comikaze) all involved in the space, as well as various nebulous start-ups that haven’t announced anything yet.
In other words….
(Photo via the MegaCon FB page.)
BrossGen? :)
Interesting…. they publish via Taylor & Francis.
http://www.informaexhibitions.com/our-events/
Mega Con
Fan Expo Regina
Fan Expo Dallas
Fan Expo Canada
Fan Expo Vancouver
The company is international. Competitor to Reed Exhibitions.
I have a few fully-developed initiatives that will become grand-changers and standards for the con/event industry. It’s a little frustrating.
I think you should amend the “by all accounts” part to a “by some accounts” or perhaps “most accounts”. I’ve been either an attendee or exhibitor every year since 2000 and I think for the past several years Megacon’s become an increasingly chaotic mess.
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