A Few Thoughts on NYCC in the Fall

As promised, I wanted to blog a few thoughts on the big announcement we made this week regarding a new home on the calendar for NYCC and our intention to launch a cool new pop culture and comics event in Chicago.

These were both projects we’ve been working on for a while, with not a lot of movement, and that all it once it came together. Cleary we needed the NYCC dates to be settled before this weekend’s show, but I felt strongly that if we were going to make Chicago happen I wanted it all to come out at once. By the skin of our teeth we pulled it all together, but in the process I may lose my mind!

I’ll focus here on NYCC and post separately on Chicago as they are linked, but really separate animals.

So why October for NYCC? To put it bluntly, we really didn’t have any choice in the matter. We had been meeting with the Javits on and off for over a year trying to find acceptable dates, with room to grow, that we could keep for multiple years. We looked at everything; moving other Reed shows, running the con on Mothers Day even if there was anywhere else we could stage the con (Boston? Could we call it New York Style Con?). Finally, Javits came to us with an idea – October. They would move another show to make room for us and give us the ENTIRE upstairs of the building and the downstairs for panels. This was a big risk for us as we’ve never been in the fall, but after months of scheming, this was the only option we had to work with. After talking to our customers the general consensus was that we have built something of value, and if it happens in October then they will be there in October. And what we were facing was no New York Comic Con or NYCC in October, all signs seemed to point to the fall. I talked with the folks from other cons who this would disrupt before we announced it, and while I could do little more than give them the heads up, we did not want anyone to think we were doing this to deliberately cause difficulty for anyone, it was the best choice of no choices!

So now we have a long time in between this NYCC and the next, and while I’d love to take a long vacation, we are looking at some cool fan focused event ideas that we can do half way through the long cycle, so stay tuned for that, OK?

A number of people have also asked about the New York Anime Fest and what will happen considering it is just 2 weeks from the new NYCC 2010 dates, and the answer is, for now, nothing. NYAF will still happen in September of 09 and from there we’ll decide what is the best course of action. What I do promise is that whatever we do, it will honor the community we’ve developed of Anime fans. The whole reason we launched a separate event in NYAF was to give those Otaku’s there own place to be with there friends and fellow fans and no mater what they do, we won’t disrupt that, it may be in a different form but we’ll keep the Otaku together, I promise.

So now we’ve finally got a permanent home for NYCC on the calendar and room to grow. Do you get this, we are talking about the entire top floor of the Javits center, this allows us to grow into a massive pop culture event with comics right in the middle of it all. This a huge step in the development of NYCC and, bumps and all I am freaking thrilled at the prospect of building something totally massive for all of you fans in 2010.

This is going to be fun kids!

-L