Our friends at SDCC Unofficial Blog revealed something to us We once read with great interest: San Diego Convention Center Annual Report. Over the past few years, as San Diego Comic-Con has struggled to stay in San Diego and tried to prove its worth to the community, this report has tended to be a bit mysterious. In the past, it often didn’t mention Comic-Con at all, proving that fan events weren’t something officials wanted to acknowledge for years.
Of course, everything has changed. SDCC has the largest economic impact of any event hosted at the convention center, with the 2023 show generating $161.1 million in revenue. (The report covers the fiscal year from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024.) The city loves scams as much as scams love this city, and even though the contract was about to be renewed, no one took it seriously. An event will become a reality.
However, this report did give me a chance to dig into some numbers. With travel and hotel costs on the rise, how much are Comic-Con attendees really spending compared to other trade show attendees?
In 2023, Comic-Con’s 135,000 attendees spent $161.1 million, an average of $1,193 per person. That number seems a bit low, but when you consider that locals can stay at home and shared rooms are the rule, it does track. I’ve spent more time than I’ve ever had in a hotel room, but I also stayed six nights and shared it with two other people (and made a podcast about it). Too much food to order, but everyone goes to Ralphs and a lot of people are eating snacks at parties or taking the subway.
The second-ranked show on the list is the American Society of Hematology (Physicians who study blood and blood disorders) annual meeting, which attracted 28,000 attendees and generated a regional impact of $125.4 million, or $4,464 per person. While it’s a much bigger deal than Comic-Con, it’s a safe bet that the blood doctors will be in a room and probably eating a nice hot meal every night, which is what this humble reporter said at Comic-Con Something I could only dream of.
What about restaurants? It just so happens that the 2024 ASH Annual Meeting is taking place at this time, and the page Their hotel reservations are not fully booked yet! I compared the prices at several restaurants and the price for the blood doctor was the same as the price for the cartoonist. That said, when planning to attend, they may be able to select their preferred hotel and number of room nights on the travel page and then go about their day without the upsetting, nerve-wracking experience of Hoteloween/hotel apocalypse. Oddly enough, for whatever reason, there are more hotels available for ASH than for SDCC.
Hotel room prices will attract the most attention in the future SDCC is up for renewal. Hotel prices are increasing everywhere, but keeping them in line with normal prices, rather than jacking them up for SDCC, is definitely a key factor for players On average, they may not earn as much as hematologists.
I didn’t calculate per capita spending for the top 10 campaigns, but I did count one campaign from ESRI, a campaign for people using GIS geospatial mapping software that was said to have had a bigger impact than anime a long time ago exhibition. Esri’s event was held virtually before Comic-Con in July, and their 17,835 mappers spent $54.1 million, an average of $3027 each.
I’m afraid I’m stuck on this issue and found out that the name of the star map maker on the show is Jack Dangermondfounder of ESRI, you can submit your own maps, and Sites that display these user-generated submissionswhich includes a where are the gloves.
Regardless, there is one more show in the top ten that is of interest to this report, the American Library Association Annual Show, which has been moved around but was held in SD last year. 13,532 librarians spent $43 million, with an average spend of $3,177. More than map makers! However, the ALA show is six days long, while the ASH show is four days and the ESRI show is five days. Of course, SDCC is a five-day event, or for some, a week.
What does all this number crunching mean? Well, #1, I spend too much time analyzing the San Diego convention business. But it all has to do with the controversial plans for a convention center expansion — an idea that now looks all but dead But a recent legal ruling It was a victory for previous expansion plans. Voters did support a ballot measure to raise hotel taxes to fund expansion, but the vote was in 2020, so… who knows? The 80 events held at the convention center in FY23-24 generated a record economic impact of $1.5 billion, and maybe one day the idea will be floated again – it’s really the only way Comic-Con can expand, with attendance capped at 135,000 people for many years.
At the same time, San Diego is a cute little town where people enjoy traveling and spending money. As the SDCC Blog reminds us…there are only 226 days left until Comic-Con!
