Tampa Bay Comic Con - August 23-25, 2013! Game of Thrones guests!

[capt_comics]

I had a GREAT time. Sales were not quite what I expected for the amount of people that were at the show, but still good. Had a BIG sale late Sunday that made the show.

 

Not sure what the attendance was but it was TREMENDOUS. At least the 20,000 we had heard, I am sure. It was an ordeal at times to walk back to the restrooms........

 

Lots of cosplayers, And lots of kids and families which is good to see.

 

Had a good buying show too thanks to Rick, George, Earl Shaw and Neil from Emerald City comics. Picked up a BIG stack of cheap(recent) books for a good customer from a collector that had set up at the show.

 

I'm definitely going to make the trip back down next year!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Godfather's Comic]

I am part of the convention management staff and was also a vendor at the show. Obviously, I was only able to spot check my booths as my primarily responsibilities were running the show. I did put my booths in good hands and we did have a successful weekend. We sold many "cheap" books, about 10 to 11 boxes of such and a good amount fair priced bronze and silver age, one of which was a Daredevil number 1.

 

We are aware of all the issues people incurred and are sensitive to it. Please know we are meeting with the convention center to resolve these issues for future shows. We do care about people's input and want to continue to evolve the show and make it into one of the best in the country. I want to thank everyone for their patience and patronage and stress we are working diligently to refine the show and enhance everyone's experience.

[pastandpresentcomics]

While you're talking to the convention staff, you might look into getting better tables for the booths. The tables they provided were very poor quality and could bearly hold a row of short boxes. I heard of several instances where tables had collapsed.

Thanks

PS

An 8 foot table wouldn't hurt either instead of the 6 footer provided.

[Timely]

While you're talking to the convention staff, you might look into getting better tables for the booths. The tables they provided were very poor quality and could bearly hold a row of short boxes. I heard of several instances where tables had collapsed.

Thanks

PS

An 8 foot table wouldn't hurt either instead of the 6 footer provided.

 

I witnessed one of those collapses. You don't want to get sued if a few 60 pound long boxes falls on some little kid.

[400yrs]

I thinK this needs to go ahead and be considered a major con because I officially have the con mung. I felt it coming Tuesday night and it is full fledged now. Hand sanitizer didn't help apparently. Anyone else get it?

[Godfather's Comic]

Thank you for the input. I will address the table issue with ownership. Any sincere input is always appreciated.

[KingOfRulers]

It has been a busy few months for us running the Tampa Bay Comic Con! I thought that the week following the convention would be time to unwind, but no chance--just as busy as ever. Now that I finally have a second to write one, here is my convention review:

 

Massive success with a few logistical and crowd management problems.

 

The total attendance was approximately 28,000 attendees as estimated by the Tampa Convention Center. That makes it the second largest comic convention in Florida and among the top 15 in the United States.

 

We were slammed on Saturday. Our goal and estimates were, 5k on Friday, 10k on Saturday and 5k on Sunday. What actually happened was more like 2k on Friday, 18k on Saturday and 8k on Sunday. The line on Saturday was unexpected as we were staffed to accommodate about 10k attendees. When nearly 2x that amount showed up, it was overwhelming. The line snaked through the entire 2nd floor mezzanine, downstairs, snaked through a 10k sqft ballroom, out of the front doors, down the street and across the bridge down to Jacksons restaurant. We will be increasing our box office staff significantly for the next convention. We don't want attendees standing in the hot Florida sun.

 

The only other glaring problem were the celebrity photo-ops. We hired a photographer and he was also not staffed or equipped to handle the Saturday turnout. The photo-ops were a mess to be honest, and the photographer is working to fix the problem. We've offered all attendees that purchased a photo-op, two free adult admissions to the next convention.

 

I was running around like crazy, but from the dealers I did speak to, they seemed to do quite well. There were a couple of mediocre sales reports that I heard, but most of them were actually very, very positive sales reports. There were a few big sales, but as usual the items that were selling in huge quantities were the lower tier books ($100 or less).

 

Here's a montage that we put together (not a lot of comics though):

 

[KingOfRulers]

Check out Rick getting famous!