The more space you have, the more retailers & consumers you can pack in, and the more money switches hands, so that the local economy of whichever Convention Center gets/keeps CCI benefits, the retailers benefit, and the consumers are more easily parted with their cash. If you can make the exhibit hall even more comfortable & convenient for the consumers (ie; wider aisles, larger rooms for panels, etc.), then they will stick around longer. The big names will go wherever the people are, in order to promote their tv shows, movies, etc. - so if you can pack the people in, you have a captive audience. Sell it right and they will pay attention.

Your personal locale doesn’t matter. So stop voicing your opinions just because it’s more convenient to you. I live in the San Diego area and I’d LOVE to see Comic-Con in a building with more space to walk around, perusing the wares, and avoid being smothered by every fat nerd who thinks it’s okay to not shower every day. Whether that means an extension to the SD Convention Center or moving the convention… I’m okay with it. Those who desire to go to the convention will follow as long as the amenities are favorable.

My parents lived in Vegas for about 5 years, and I have been there many times on trips, so I am very familiar with the weather there. Believe me, Vegas in July is intensely HOT, and there’s no comparison in the weather. Yes, the buildings in Vegas are kept incredibly cool, but I’d much prefer the character of San Diego over the desert oasis of Vegas.

No, Chicago was not “relatively” cooler in June — the average temperature for the first 13 days were the coldest in 50 years. And July started out the same way. Even after a couple of warm days in a row, July is still averaging six degrees cooler than normal.

If this keeps up for a few more years, Chicago WILL be the new San Diego!

Yeah, but according to Al Gore, things are only going to get worse…

Maybe Chicago will become the new San Diego. After all, this year, we’ve had a June and July that has been unusually cool.

And the McCormick Place convention complex here makes San Diego’s look puny by comparison.

And last year the temperature was consistently in the low to mid 70s for the entire full four days of the con - which is more typical for San Diego in late July, according to historical weather data.

I’ve attended Comicon International three times, and all three times it was hot and muggy — and always warmer than 72 degrees. As a matter of fact, in 2006, the temperature was 80 degrees on Thursday, 82 on Friday, 99 on Saturday, and 83 on Sunday.

I’ve also been to Vegas a half-dozen times or so, and while it certainly is hot, I don’t ever remember being as uncomfortable there as I was not just outside of the San Diego Convention Center, but INSIDE as well. The convention center does not have a very effective climate control system, in my opinion.

Still, I agree that Vegas is probably not a good option — especially for the dealers at Comicon. I sure wouldn’t want to have to compete for the fans’ dollars with all the potential money-syphoning distractions Vegas has to offer.

Hell the Steampunk freaks alone have the best watering hole waiting for them at the Edison. google it, tis the most beautiful bar ever with the best sweet potato fries ever.

There’s tons of stuff for kiddies not just Disneyland, there’s also Universal Studios which is eaaaaasily accessible using the downtown centered subway.

There’s tooons of really fancy awesome food places downtown nowadays, and bars are about the only thing they ever had right to begin with!

Not just Edison, but http://www.ladowntownnews.com/articles/2009/07/14/listings/bars_and_clubs/doc49b5be6ae3a1a639785270.txt

Please give LA a chance unlike other places the natives would actually like to have the convention, doesn’t that count for something?

Some of the best comic book stores are in this city Meltdown on which that one Alan Moore-Simpsons episode is obviously based on. Golden Apple, Earth2, Secret Headquarters…. tons more.

I love having the convention at SD, but if they HAVE to move it anywhere, my vote goes to LA!

I don’t even really notice the other stuff except for the random celebrity sighting. I never even see 99 percent of it. I might feel differently if I had to be in that registration line, I don’t know.

I do think it’s likely someone will try a satellite event in the next few years.

But given the trajectory growth of the convention, I don’t see how the show can grow if it stays in San Diego–unless, of course, the convention center decides to expand as it’s now considering.

I’m an Angelino now, but as a transplant from the East Coast, I must admit I’ve never particularly been an L.A. booster. But though there have been a lot of hiccups and obstacles along the way (topped by the current economy), downtown L.A. has slowly begun to seriously re-gentrify, and I do believe Comic-Con would accelerate that effort and benefit as well. If the show had to leave San Diego, I do think L.A. would be a better fit than Vegas or Anaheim–yes, because of personal convenience, but also because of my familiarity with all three of these other cities and their convention facilities.

Amazing how a rough economy combined with the demonizing of corporate retreats and expense account spending can change the tune of the city fathers, ain’t it?

Those other events meant a lot of cash to the city and was valued more at the time because it was (thanks to expense accounts) more spent per person. The hotels may not have sold out like they do for us, but the hotel roms that did fill up didn’t have five or six people in a double like happens during SDCC. NOW, with that kind of expense being frowned upon and the city having a rough first and second quarter as a result, our (mostly) non-subsidized visit to the city is looking damn good.

Secondly, I would be very interested in seeing how the mailing addresses of the 125K attendees break down. My (also uniformed) guess is that the majority really do come from the greater San Diego area, but I’d love to actually know for sure.

Personally I’d love LA. I don’t need to “get away” - not at absurd price it is for a hotel room in San Diego these days. For that price I could *actually* get away to some place nice.

All them outside-suitors talk are just ‘negotiation positioning’ by the CCI folks… just as dangling that ‘future expansion’ of the Convention Center by the SD politicos. Pretty words being thrown around before the deadline of signing the new contracts FINALLY come around…

Look: should they take the “San Diego” part out of “Comic-Con”, the CCI organisers and new-found metropolitan beau will quickly discover that CCI:Wherever will just be a shadow of what SDCC used to be. Sure, the weather’s a factor— why else would all them NYC-based Comics creators decide to fly across the country 40 years ago? San Diego IS and always will be a prime Summer Vacation spot: and transplanting the Con to Vegas for one and other interchangeable metropolitan urban center WON’T be the same to attract the passes-buying constituencies the current Con now enjoys. A lesser concern would be the willingness of the H’wood Film and TV contigent to travel someplace further than a 2-hr drive from their LA base: an argument for Anaheim, yes, but problematic for elsewhere. On the plus side, though— moving more than 2 hrs away just might help bring about that ‘return’ of the Con to its “Comics” root? and just might reduce the current clusterf*ck of having 125K+ attendees to something more manageable: ONLY “Comics” fans would be attending! (And there was much rejoicing.) Which in turn would probably piss off the new site owners hoping for that Summer uptick of 125K+ visitors would bring to their hotel taxes and local economy; and on top of the financial
‘incentives’ that new site would be giving the CCI to relocate, moving the Con might not be the monetary bonanza they had hoped for. And then: should there be a couple of years of this non-SDCC level of performance, would the CCI be forced to relocate AGAIN? (If so, good foresight in rebranding it to “CCI”— that after-colon placement can fit in any name!)

Moving the Comic-Con: “Killing the Golden Goose” anyone?