Talks to keep Comic-Con in San Diego past 2018 are expected to hit full stride now that the annual comic book convention is over.
An estimated 135,000 people attended the four-day event at the San Diego Convention Center. That doesn’t include the thousands more who attended the free events in the Gaslamp Quarter, Petco Park and surrounding areas.
Comic-Con is contracted to be back every year through 2018. Comic-Con’s Director of Public Relations David Glanzer said preliminary minor discussions have already begun with the City of San Diego and local hotels.
“Now that Comic-Con is over, we’ll start more in earnest and really get down to the brass tax of negotiating,” Glanzer said.
Glanzer added they’d like to see the Convention Center expanded and Comic-Con does not support the San Diego Chargers' plan to include convention space in their proposed downtown stadium.
“Anything that is a separate building really; we don’t view it as an expansion,” said Glanzer. “It’s another separate building and there are challenges to that.”
The Cappa family thought Comic-Con could use more room, especially for the popular Hall H panels that fit roughly 6,500 people.
“It’s such a shame to see all these people lining up outside for four, five days,” said Jim Cappa, of the thousands that wait outside for days to get into Hall H.
“Everyone’s stuck in line, sleeping overnight and nobody’s inside spending money,” said his daughter Christina.
Glanzer said he expected Comic-Con to stay right where it is “if everybody [the City of San Diego and local hotels] takes into account what’s best for the attendees, then absolutely.”
