Keeping Comic-Con: San Diego Mayor Asks Hotels To Freeze Rates

It’s not a secret that Comic-Con International has outgrown its home at the San Diego Convention Center. The fact that it has is the main reason New York Comic Con reportedly blew past CCI in terms of attendance this year.

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San Diego’s efforts to expand the convention center have hit a snag, leaving the question of whether Comic-Con might head somewhere else after its current contract expires very much an open one. To that end, Mayor Kevin Faulconer is trying a different tactic, asking hotels not to raise their rates after 2016. The San Diego Union Tribune reports that almost 60 percent of the hotels that participate in the SDCC room blocking plan have already agreed to hold the line on room rates for at least 2017 and 2018, which is when the show could look for another home.

It sounds like a simple solution to help the most prominent pop culture event in North America stay put, but it’s more complicated for the hotels. July is peak tourism time in San Diego, and their rooms would be full whether Comic-Con was around or not — potentially by people willing to pay even higher prices than SDCC attendees. It probably doesn’t help that those convention-goers have developed a reputation for being cheapskates compared to people who come for industry or trade shows.

But in the “all is not lost” department, it has to be heartening for people who would like to keep Comic-Con in San Diego to hear show spokesman David Glanzer say this:

"Some people had mistakenly implied that an expanded convention center would be the thing that solidified our decision to stay or go, but there are a number of factors to be addressed: hotel room rates, available space within hotels and outside the center, things that could mitigate the issue of having outgrown the convention center. An expansion would be great for the city and us, but if it doesn’t happen we’ve been able to make do without it, and if we can mitigate the concerns we do have we’ll be able to stay here."

Indeed, previously it seemed like the fate of SDCC was an “expansion or bust” deal, but perhaps that isn’t the case. From the outside looking in, Comic-Con and San Diego appear to still have a mutual attraction for each other, but it remains to be seen how far each is willing to go to remain committed.

(via the San Diego Union Tribune by way of CBR’s Robot 6)

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