News and info about New York Comic Con 2025 has been coming out at a steady clip, and this week, the map of the show floor dropped….and it’s a doozy!
The show floor is getting a big makeover – more on that in a moment – but the big shocker is in the upper right hand corner: based on this map it appears that DC Comics will have a booth once more!
While I have reached out to confirm this, if true, it would be big news, at least for dedicated con-ologists such as myself.
DC was one of the founding exhibitors at the show, which launched in in 2006, but in 2013 they moved their booth off the show floor into an area known as the “south concourse.” I wrote a story at the time, and the reason given was to allow a nice display of Superman costumes. And indeed, this space did become a pleasant oasis of sorts, removed from the hurlyburly of the regular show floor, and allowing lots of attractive displays. While not publicly stated, I was told at the time that one of the reasons for moving away from the floor was security: the area around the booth in 2012 was so insanely crowded that it was considered unsafe.
The con went away for COVID 2020, but when it came back in 2021, there was no DC booth or area. This followed DC tragically giving up their prime booth space at San Diego Comic-Con in 2019, although they returned in 2023 in a different, less central spot. But from the looks of things they are coming back to NYCC with a big giant booth as in days of yore, as big as Marvel’s even. ABSOLUTE booth-set-up, indeed.
But this is only one of the changes in the show floor. DC’s booth will be in the far right corner along with other publishers, including, as shown on the map, AWA, Comixology Originals, Mad Cave, Vault, and IDW. In recent years this was the setting for mostly food carts – including some very tasty banh mi, I might add – so while we are getting more comics, we are getting fewer smoothies and pretzels.
There are many other changes shown on the map – more of an “entertainment area” where Funko used to be. Funko will actually be in the FRONT of the “comics zone,” although sister brands Mondo and Loungefly will be centrally located.
However the “publishers area” consisting of Penguin Random House, Scholastic, Harper Alley and other mainstream book publishers remains more centrally located – although PRH will be nestled in the midst of Walmart, NECA and Sanrio. This will be a busy, busy area and we suggest avoiding it on Saturday if you can.
One more thing, and most important to me and the rest of the Beat staff, as revealed in Variety a week ago, the ENTIRE River Pavilion will be given over to professionals, with a pro lounge, two stages, and, maybe if we’re lucky, coffee.
I’ll have more details on the PRO-gramming in a future post, but the cosplay staging area used to be in the front of the hall, making getting to meetings kind when you were in a hurry both colorful and harrowing. So everyone on the Beat Staff was overjoyed when they heard this. Yes, I know we are privileged, but having a clean space to work with power and wifi is a boon for covering the show. Please don’t hate us.
Also, for everyone who complained about not getting a panel this year, there is really very little space for programming with everything else that has to be squeezed in. For instance, there are only two panel rooms on Level 1, set between other necessities such as a quiet room (in theory, I know), and the Pride Lounge.
As I’ve observed many times, while SDCC is pretty much the same year in and year out NYCC is a new adventure every time, and a lot of new routes and shortcuts will need to be discovered in 2025.
Stay tuned to The Beat for more coverage from NYCC ’25.
