SMOF News, volume 1, issue 29

The future of the media behemoths, and news in brief.

Mega-Conventions Are Feeling Squeezed

Entertainment Weekly checks on how cons are weathering the pandemic in an article titled “Keep con and carry on: How fan conventions are bouncing back from the pandemic”. When EW says “fan conventions”, of course, it means a very specific kind of convention, the sort that is used to being roughly the size of Reno, Nevada:

With approximately 150,000 vaccinated fans (and their masks, both surgical and sartorial) coming together last fall, compared with about 260,000 in 2019, it felt like what Comic-Con used to be before geekdom became mainstream.

That’s New York Comic Con; the article also looks at Comic-Con International in San Diego, which is still under a cloud of uncertainty as to its 2022 event. Official dates have been announced (July 21-24), but as yet it has no COVID-19 policy, and the Badge Info page still has information for 2020.

But there is another issue, which dates back well before the pandemic:

The irony is that prior to the pandemic, in-person conventions had never been hotter, as studios sought to create their own corporate-owned Comic-Con-like experiences to attract attendees, often in lieu of panels at the world's premiere fan gathering, Comic-Con International: San Diego. Star Wars Celebration (also produced by ReedPop, in collaboration with Lucasfilm) was one of the original big-branded events, followed by the likes of Disney's D23 Expo and Star Trek: Mission New York. One industry insider says that NBCUniversal was "actively planning" its own "mini-convention" for the spring of 2020 to showcase the company's slate of IP, including Jurassic World and Fast & Furious. COVID ultimately derailed those plans.

In fact this kind of competition from official cons goes back at least as far as the Star Trek cons operated by Creation Entertainment starting in 1993, back when the San Diego con was drawing crowds in the mere low five digits. It doesn’t seem to have been a major impediment to growth until now.

But the article suggests that the combination of more studio-specific events and pandemic shrinkage may be pushing the gigantic media cons toward a fundamental transformation of some kind.

For the San Diego con, this may be turbulent but survivable. Its roots in the older community convention tradition are still visible; it took a long time to evolve into the industry spectacle it is today and could probably mutate again and survive if it were to lose a significant portion of that industry presence.

NYCC, on the other hand, is entirely a creature of the modern commercial era. It has little to differentiate itself from your local pop culture expo beyond size and official industry participation. Though the president of ReedPop sounds ready to try embracing something beyond the “show” aspect:

As for those 150,000 costumed fans who did attend last fall's NYCC, Fensterman thinks they experienced something you can't quite get through a computer screen. "Maybe I'm a Luddite, but people more than ever will value that ability to come together in settings to celebrate what they love and discover things they didn't know they loved," he says. "Maybe that sort of community, in a very real and physical sense, has even greater value than it once did because of what we've been through."

In Brief

• The deadline to file bids to host the 2024 World Science Fiction Convention and the 2023 North American Science Fiction Convention has passed. The page of official bid filings shows Glasgow, Scotland unopposed for the Worldcon; the previously announced bid to hold NASFiC in Orlando has been joined at the last minute by one for Winnipeg (spun off of the unsuccessful 2023 Worldcon bid for Winnipeg).

Event Calendar

Weekend of March 18-20

• MarsCon 2022, Williamsburg, Virginia, USA

• Clockwork Alchemy (steampunk), Burlingame, California, USA

• Furnal Equinox (anthropomorphic), Toronto, Ontario, Canada

• Texas Furry Fiesta (anthropomorphic), Dallas, TX

• Furnexion (anthropomorphic), Monterrey, Mexico

• Token Con (gaming), Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA

• Zuiderspel (gaming), Veldhoven, Netherlands

• Southern Board Game Festival, Lafayette, Louisiana, USA

• GOBweb (boardgames), virtual

• Meeple Peak (boardgames), Carson City, Nevada, USA

• COSCON XXXII (RPGs), Lyndora, Pennsylvania, USA

• Concrete Cow (RPGs), Milton Keynes, UK

• Hotlead (miniatures gaming), Stratford, Ontario, Canada

• Playthrough (video games), Raleigh, North Carolina, USA

• Triad Anime Convention, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA

• Anime Detour, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

• Sausomecon (anime), Independence, Missouri, USA

• EvilleCon 2022 (anime), Evansville, Indiana, USA

• Tora-Con 2022 (anime), Rochester, New York, USA

• Toronto Comicon, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

• Paris Manga Sci-Fi Show (media), Paris, France

• CarrierCon 2022 (media), Alameda, California, USA

• MondoCon 2022 Spring (media), Budapest, Hungary

• DarkLight Convention 4 (Supernatural), Paris, France

Weekend of March 25-27

• AggieCon 51, College Station, Texas, USA

• MidSouthCon 38, Memphis, Tennessee, USA

• HELIOsphere, Piscataway, New Jersey, USA

• FantaSci 2022: Time Warp Edition, Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, USA

• Consonance 2022 (music), Milpitas, California, USA

• Motor City Furry Con, Ypsilanti, Michigan, USA

• Plattecon XXXV: The Redemption Arc (gaming), Platteville, Wisconsin, USA

• GameStorm 22, Portland, Oregon, USA

• Terminal City Tabletop Convention (gaming), Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

• WashingCon (gaming), Washington, DC, USA

• Ludinord (gaming), Lille, France

• Game On Greensboro, Greensboro, North Carolina, USA

• SIMCON 43 (boardgames), Rochester, New York, USA

• Adepticon 2022 (wargaming), Schaumburg, Illinois, USA

• FreeCon 18 (anime), Tallahassee, Florida, USA

• Nadeshicon (anime), Québec City, Québec, Canada

• Banzaicon (anime), Columbia, South Carolina, USA

• SwampCon 1v1 (anime), Gainesville, Florida, USA

• AnimeJapan 2022, Tokyo, Japan

• Zenkaikon 2022 (anime), Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA

• Anime Recharge 2022, Des Moines, Iowa, USA

• ExpOtaku Almería 2022 (anime), Almería, Spain

• Fluke 2022 (independent comics and zines), Athens, Georgia, USA

• Revelcon 32 (media relaxacon), Houston, Texas, USA

Weekend of April 1-3

• CyPhaCon 2022, Lake Charles, Louisiana, USA

• Roscon-2022, Moscow, Russia

• Costume-Con 40: Rogues, Royals, Renegades, Rockville, Maryland, USA

• Atlanta Game Fest 37, Alpharetta, Georgia, USA

• LeiriaCon (gaming), Leiria, Portugal

• LexiCon 2022 (gaming), Lexington, Kentucky, USA

• LexiCon-IL (RPGs), Lexington, Illinois, USA

• Animarathon (anime), Bowling Green, Ohio, USA

• Cape Anime, Cape Girardeau, Missouri, USA

• KokoroCon (anime), Nottingham, UK

• Tokyo Alley (anime), Perth, Australia

• AniFest 2022 (anime), Torrance, California, USA

• FACTS (media), Ghent, Belgium

• Angers Geekfest: La Culture Geek Au Féminin (media), Angers, France

• Quad Cities Comic Con, Davenport, Iowa, USA

• Vaca-Con (media), Vacaville, California, USA

• WonderCon 2022 (media), Anaheim, California, USA

Weekend of April 8-10

• LuxCon 2022 (Eurocon), Dudelange, Luxembourg

• ConStellation, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

• Jack Williamson Lectureship, Portales, New Mexico, USA

• Springmoot (J. R. R. Tolkien), Exeter, UK

• 221B Con (Sherlock Holmes), Atlanta, Georgia, USA

• FK-NO 3 (music), online

• CosXpo (costuming), Reading, UK

• Golden State Fur Con (anthropomorphic), Los Angeles, California, USA

• CODCON XXV: Re-Roll! (gaming), Glen Ellyn, Illinois, USA

• Adirondacon (gaming), Glens Falls, New York, USA

• DaveCon (gaming), Roseville, Illinois, USA

• MEPACON (gaming), White Haven, Pennsylvania, USA

• Buckeye Game Fest 2022, Columbus, Ohio, USA

• Long Island Tabletop Gaming Expo 2022, Garden City, New York, USA

• Havoc XXXVI (miniatures gaming), Sutton, Massachusetts, USA

• Conpulsion Lite (RPGs), online

• Ambercon 2022 (Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game), online (usually Livonia, Michigan, USA)

• LAN All Night V: LAN of the Rings (LAN gaming), Grapevine, Texas, USA

• CoMo Retro Con (retro video games), Columbia, Missouri, USA

• Aselia Con (Tales game series), Irving, Texas, USA

• Con Ja Nai XXVI (anime), Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

• Jaycon 11 (anime), Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, USA

• Made in Asia (anime), Brussels, Belgium

• Romics XXVIII (comics), Rome, Italy

• Sci-Fi Scarborough (media), Scarborough, UK

• Rod Con (media), Cedar Falls, Iowa, USA

• Wicked Comic Con, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

• SC Comicon, Greenville, South Carolina, USA

• Central Texas Comic Con, Waco, Texas, USA

• Bedford Who Charity Con 7 (Doctor Who), Bedford, UK

• Star Trek Mission Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA

• Dairycon 2022: The Moo Adventures (Transformers), Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, USA

Weekend of April 15-17

• Reclamation 2022, the 72nd Eastercon (UK national sf convention), London, UK

• Minicon 55, Saint Louis Park, MN

• Norwescon 44, Seatac, Washington, USA

• Fastaval, Hobro, Denmark

• HAL-CON 2022, Kawasaki, Japan

• Fauntastic 2022: Night of the Yōkai (anthropomorphic), Lyon, France

• Fur Squared 2022 (anthropomorphic), Brookfield, Wisconsin, USA

• GothCon XLV (gaming), Göteborg, Sweden

• Conquest Games Convention (RPGs), Melbourne, Australia

• Nashville Tabletop Day (boardgames), Nashville, Tennessee, USA

• OzBunnyCon 2022 (boardgames), Glen Waverley, Australia

• Kanpai!Con (anime), Omaha, Nebraska, USA

• MTAC Score! (anime), Nashville, Tennessee, USA

• Mang’Azur (anime), Toulon, France

• Polymanga (anime), Montreux, Switzerland

• Karoshi-Con (anime), DeKalb, Illinois, USA

• Saluki Con (anime), Carbondale, Illinois, USA

• SacAnime, Roseville, California, USA

• Colorado Anime Fest, Denver, Colorado, USA

• Sakura-Con 2022 (anime), Seattle, Washington, USA

• Puerto Rico Comic Con, San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA

• Indiana Comic Convention, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

• BABSCon 2022 (My Little Pony), Burlingame, California, USA

Coda

• President-Elect of Chile Receives a Squirtle as Administration’s Starter Pokémon (Anime News Network)

Thank you for reading! Send tips, corrections, press releases, and letters of comment to: smofnews@gmx.com.