NYCC 2014: Attendance Swells To 151,000, Making NYCC Bigger Than SDCC
By Nick Tylwalk
Move over Comic-Con International, there’s a new leader when it comes to the biggest pop culture convention in North America.
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New York Comic Con now holds the crown, as ReedPOP announced on the final day of NYCC 2014 that 151,000 tickets were sold for this year’s show. That’s up from 133,000 last year and an astounding increase of just over 50 percent since 2011.
The question now is how much bigger can it possibly get. I can tell you firsthand that by the afternoon on Friday and Saturday, both the main show floor and the concourse connecting the central parts of the show to Javits North where Artist Alley was located were nearly impassable. Even with a venue the size of the Javits Center, logistics are going to be continuing challenges for NYCC going forward.
San Diego has solved that issue by simply capping the number of tickets for Comic-Con International and expanding to other venues nearby. That’s not quite as possible in Manhattan, though the invention of New York Super Week this year was an attempt to do something similar.
Still, this is a good problem for ReedPOP to have as opposed to throwing a big show and wondering how to get more people to attend. SDCC is probably going to continue to be the more significant show for the movie and TV industries due to timing and proximity to Hollywood, but NYCC certainly has achieved behemoth status in its own right — and it’s got the attendance figures to prove it.
(via CBR’s Robot 6)