WILL THE COMIC-CON MOVE?

Once again, the Comic-Con International San Diego is contemplating a move away from its home for the past 40 years. The Con mulled over the opportunities once before — a couple years ago — but was finally persuaded to sign a contract with the San Diego Convention Center through 2016. Now, as the end of that contract approacheth, the Con is being courted again by Los Angeles and Anaheim.

San Diego no longer has a convention venue large enough for the Con. And that was the bone of contention before. For several years, the Con has been limited to about 130,000 registrants because the Convention Center turns into a fire hazard if more people are permitted to throng through its hallways and exhibits.

The Con was persuaded to stay in San Diego when the city announced that it would expand the Convention Center. But that plan hit a snag last summer, reported Hugo Martin and Tony Perry at latimes.com:

“The $520-million expansion lost momentum when a state appeals court ruled against a financing plan that would allow hotels around the convention center — instead of voters — to decide on a tax increase to pay for the project. San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer has vowed to find another way to finance the expansion.”

But he hasn’t yet, and it’s been six months or more.

The Con is big business for San Diego: “Last year, its 130,000 attendees accounted for 60,960 room nights and generated $177.8 million for the local economy.” In the world of conventions, every dollar that a visitor to a city spends has a multiplier effect of x7 on the local economy. No wonder Los Angeles and Anaheim, sensing a crisis approaching, have begun circling again.

Both Los Angeles and Anaheim have larger convention centers than San Diego, but Los Angeles' biggest problem as a site for the Comic-Con is a shortage of hotel rooms within walking distance of its convention center: fewer than 5,000 hotel rooms within a mile of the center, with only an additional 2,000 or so rooms under construction. Meanwhile, Anaheim has more than 13,000 hotel rooms within a mile of the convention center. San Diego has about 11,000 rooms within walking distance — plus several hundred more in Mission Valley, an annoying trolley-car ride away.

Still, my bet is that the Con will stay in San Diego — for a very simple reason: most of its staff lives in San Diego, and they probably don’t relish the idea of managing a big convention as far from home as Anaheim (even though WonderCon, which the Sandy Eggo crew manages, already meets at Anaheim).

San Diego’s managers will miss a bet, though, if they can’t leverage the competition to get the San Diego hotels to lower room rates. They think that they did it last time, but they didn’t. Not by much. Not enough to justify leaving $177.8 million behind in the city’s economy.