Tag: con wars!

A new and potentially awful chapter in Con Wars opened up today. The Honey Badgers are the ladies auxiliary of the MRA (Men's Rights Advocates) groups, and MRA groups are largely affiliated with GamerGate, the endlessly annoying group that has been fighting diversity behind a shield of anti-censorship for the last since last summer. And sadly this warzone—mostly held on social media until now—just got dragged into the real world of the Calgary Expo.

Actually not a con war, but a curiosity of scheduling with both the MoCCA Festival and Crucial Entertainment East Coast Comicon in the Meadowlands both scheduled for this weekend. When I originally heard about...

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...

Yesterday The Mary Sue published an article suggesting that for-profit comic-cons could be violating federal labor law by not paying minimum wage to workers improperly classified as volunteers. However, a recent case involving Major League Baseball shows how ReedPop and other commercial comic-con ventures could beat the tag.

What goes up, must deal with thinner oxygen at higher atmospheres. The last two years have seen unprecedented growth in comic cons/ media events around the world, with many showing spectacular growth. But as we keep pointing out in our "When a con is crap" recurring feature, this also means a lot of fly by nighters and unprepared rookies are jumping in and not achieving the results they might have hoped for. And along the way, unsuspecting vendors, guests and attendees are getting caught holding the empty oxygen tank.

I know you thought the "con kerfuffle" had faded away, but I think it's definitely an ongoing burning issue for the industry, in a rapidly evolving field, and Chris Butcher, retailer and a show runner himself for TCAF, as well as booth runner for Udon, has posted a brilliant summation that puts all the eggs in one basket and then hits that basket out of the park: Butcher identifies several trends, which I'll list for argument:

by Lawrence Brenner -- Cosplay is one of the most visual and important aspects of conventions especially in the last ten years. It is one of the greatest and creative expressions of fandom, displaying a multitude of art forms combined. In addition, many cosplayers are employed in multiple capacities by companies to help in the promotion of their products, services, etc. Cosplayers themselves are also a new form of retailer for and at conventions (and con goers) who sell various products based on their likenesses as various characters and interpretations of from different properties, and this includes props and commissions. In fact, many cosplayers and photographers/videographers go to conventions to photograph and videograph different cosplayers and be the subjects of photos and videos.

As we reported the other day, in 2015 Wizard's convention schedule is expanding even more, and they are adding nine new territories in 2015, including San Jose, Calif.; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Cleveland, OH Raleigh, N.C.; Indianapolis,...

Are con wars just heating up? Calvin Reid and I surveyed the showrunners after this weekend's three con pile-up and it sounds like things are just getting started. In particular, it turns out Special Edition: NYC was just a warm-up for what could be smaller comics shows everywhere.

Here's a brief local TV news spot showcasing the unfortunate timing of the new Wizard World Minneapolis—May 3-5—and the long running Spring Con thrown by the MCBN (Midwest Comic Book Association) —held May 17-18. I first reported on this last year, and Wizard's John Macaluso insisted that they hadn't known about the local show, and weren't trying to conflict with anybody—even though at one point Wizard had offered to purchase the MCBA show. According to Nick Postigliano, one of SpringCon's organizers, the controversy has actually helped his show, as social media activity is way up and a lot of local cartoonists are supporting the show.

Straight from the offices of Publishers Weekly, it’s More to Come! Your podcast source of comics news and discussion starring The Beat’s own Heidi MacDonald. In this week’s podcast the More to Come Crew -...

UPDATE: Convention director Christina Angel has released her own statement on FB. The he said-she said of the Denver Comic Con-troversy just got ratcheted up a notch as the Con board has released a statement...