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Paradise Comics Toronto Comicon 2005

Started by Kevin Boyd,

365 posts in this topic

comicwiz

comicwiz

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As far as benefitting "some of them goes" each dealer has that one big spender who makes or breaks his show. It's a win/win situation for the dealer and the customer who is recognized that he is appreciated, the dealer has a SHOT of making money at the show and lastly he might possibly get another "A list" type collector who may spend some money.

 

I'd rather go with a promoter who is working to bring them in than go with the guy I hope is advertising to the right type of buyer.

 

This is the way most big industry tradeshows run their shows Bob. They collect the demographics of attendees at the time of registration. In addition to getting their contact informatio, they ask questions like, "how much of a budget do you have this year to spend on said_widgets", and cross-reference the data with their yearly salary to help exhibitors figure out who exactly is walking through their booth. Some of tradeshow organizers lump that data with information derived from subscriptions and alternative data sources.

 

Even when you have this information as the attendee arrives at your table or booth, there is no way to test the validity of the data maintained by the show organizers until they've actually bought anything. My past experience with some of the IT industries biggest shows really proved if nothing more, that no matter how much information you have on the attendee (after scanning their badge) you really never know anything about that person, or their willingness to spend. It will always come down to the human element, the soft-sell, and the ability of the exhibitor to communicate compelling reasons why they should buy a product that really determines whether or not the visitor is going to be spending their money.

 

One other significant obstacle in recent years to maintaing and openly sharing this information with exhibitors is the introduction of North American privacy laws, and the prosecution of violations under the federal criminal codes. Most tradeshows organizers need to be very dilligent these days about how they share attendees information, and in most cases, must recieve consent from registrants to avoid being subject to any violations under federal privacy laws.

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Kevin Boyd

Kevin Boyd

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Aside from the issues of privacy and harassment, I'm not in favour of blackmailing patrons to provide demographic information for marketting purposes before they are allowed to purchase their ticket and gain access to the convention hall, as some shows (and I mean one show in particular) do. Then again, we aren't a part of some marketting juggernaut that thrives on getting that information to make additional monies, we're just a group of guys putting on a comic book show.

 

I prefer to have the patron provide that information to us because they want to do it, not because they have to do it. Sure, we may lose out on a few addresses but I would rather make the entry process smooth and easy, and not tick off the patrons before they get into the actual convention hall.

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justiceleaguer

justiceleaguer

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One piece of advice Kevin....make sure you leave a good amount of space between dealer booths. I know you have in the past 2 cons, but you are getting bigger, and i hope you don't decide to compact the dealers area to sacrifice space for other areas. The limited amount of space along the isles at the Canadian Comic Expo is one of their biggest weaknesses. I'd love to be able to dig through every dealers comic bins for hours on end, but not at the sacrifice of getting trampled to death by other people. Just my 2 cents....CDN. thumbsup2.gif

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Kevin Boyd

Kevin Boyd

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Oh, I agree completely. I like lots of space between the rows and all the feedback I've received indicates people like it too. Row spacing in the new hall will be as wide as it was at the old one.

 

The new hall is 55000 square feet, while the old one was 66,000. However the hall is much more of a rectangular shape (QE was square) and when you see it I think you'll agree that it's a better looking hall than our last location. Only drawback is less natural light, but we don't consider that a problem. Ceiling height is much lower but still considerable, giving it a more enclosed look than the QE building. which I found to be a little to open. QE looked emptier than it was.

 

Great thing about the new hall is that there is a large enclosed room off of the main hall that we can use for panels and workshops and we have the option of taking the upper hall (another 45000 square feet - giving us 90000 square feet if we need it) for a very reasonable daily rate if we need to expand. Washrooms are much nicer, as is the snack bar (however I can't vouch for the food or the food prices).

 

Also, we plan to continue to make our Artists Alley nice and spacious. We don't want to cram them into a tiny corner like they do at that other event.

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Kevin Boyd

Kevin Boyd

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Well, Canadian dealers and creators outnumber the Americans dramatically. Most of the dealers are Canadian, I can only think of a handful of American dealers, led by Harley Yee and Koop, while we have about 10-15 non-Canadian creators, and a few in Artists Alley.

 

Overall we are about 90-95% Canadian, 5-10% USA and if all goes well we'll be adding some UK representation to that mix.

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Ares

Ares

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ALL OTHER CATEGORIES WILL BE SELECTED BY A NOMINATING COMMITTEE OF SELECTED INDIVIDUALS FROM ACROSS CANADA (BIOS WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE WHEN THE NOMINEES ARE ANNOUNCED). NOMINEES MUST HAVE HAD A CREATIVE WORK PUBLISHED IN 2004.

 

Im a select individual!

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Kevin Boyd

Kevin Boyd

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Here's the list as of 12/29/04:

 

KAARE ANDREWS

Artist: Spider-Man/Doctor Octopus: Year One (Marvel Comics)

 

JOEY CAVALIERI

Editor, DC Comics

 

JIM CHEUNG

Artist, Young Avengers (Marvel Comics), Cover artist, Fantastic Four: Foes (Marvel Comics)

 

JIM CRAIG

Classic Marvel Artist

 

TOM FOWLER

Artist, Green Arrow (DC Comics)

 

ADI GRANOV

Artist, Iron Man (Marvel Comics)

 

PHIL JIMENEZ

Writer/Artist, Otherworld (Vertigo/DC Comics), Artist, DC Countdown (DC Comics) and countless other series for DC, DC/Vertigo and Marvel.

 

FRANCIS MANAPUL

Artist, Witchblade, Vampirella/Magdalena (Top Cow)

 

NICK MARINKOVICH & NICK POSTIC

Artists/Illustrators, Underworld (IDW)

 

JIM MCLAUCHLIN

Editor-in-Chief, Top Cow

 

B. CLAY MOORE

Writer, Hawaiian , The Expatriate, Battle Hymn (Image Comics)

 

RAMON K. PEREZ

Inker, The Incredibles (Dark Horse), Writer/Artist, Butternut Squash (Webcomic)

 

DAVE ROSS

Artist, Breakdown (Devil's Due), classic Marvel and DC artist.

 

STUART SAYGER

Writer/Artist: Shiver in the Dark (self-published)

 

ALVIN SCHWARTZ

Writer, Golden Age & Early Silver Age Comics (1939-1958) including Batman, Superman, Aquaman, Slam Bradley, Vigilante, Date with Judy, Buzzy, House of Mystery, Tomahawk, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Newsboy Legion (DC Comics) and Captain Marvel (Fawcett). Mr. Schwartz also wrote most of the Batman and Superman newspaper strips published between 1944 and 1952. Mr. Schwartz is the creator of Bizarro, and had his last Bizarro story published in 2001's Bizarro Comics GN.

 

DAVE SIM

Writer/Artist/Creator/Publisher, Cerebus the Aardvark (Aardvark-Vanaheim)

There's a possibility that Gerhard might be able to attend as well.

 

TY TEMPLETON

Artist, Spider-Man/Human Torch (Marvel Comics), Writer, Simpsons Comics (Bongo)

 

J. TORRES

Writer, Teen Titans Go!, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (DC Comics), Cannon Busters (UDON/Devil's Due), Love as a Foreign Language (ONI Press)

 

WITH

Attila Adorjany

Kalman Andrasofsky

J. Bone

Ron Boyd

Nick Craine

Rich Dannys

Willow Dawson

Ron Kasman

Eric Kim

Shane Kirshenblatt

Andy Lee

Ken Lillie-Paetz

Tyrone McCarthy & Kilrush

Matthew Mohammed

Alex Perkins

Andrew Szewczuk

Craig Taillefer

James Waley

Rob Walton

Sarrah Young

 

MORE TO COME!

 

Added: 01/07/05:

 

Pat Davidson

Inker, Marvel Age Spider-Man, Marvel Age Spider-Man Team-Up

 

Crystal (M3TH) Reid

Inker, Cable/Deadpool, Teen Titans Go!, Marvel Age FF

 

Craig Yeung

Inker, Runaways

 

Rhys Yorke

Inker/Colorist, G.I. Joe: Reloaded

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imyoursoulmate-migration

imyoursoulmate-migration

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Kevin

 

Thanks for your response. I agree with the others on this board that big aisles are very important. I couldnt walk around at the other show. Are you guys planning to bring in any tv stars? I saw the Big Apple show got the girls from Three's Company. Not sure what that has to do with comics, but they are cool guests.

 

Is CGC confirmed yet for the onsite grading? I got about 20 books I need to get done, and im wondering if i should hold off till the show, or send them off now.

 

Any other legends in the works? It is sad to hear about Mr. Nodell's wife. She was very nice.

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Kevin Boyd

Kevin Boyd

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We have been talking to someone who deals with celebrity guests about having at least one person from a popular comic-related show come, but so far we've kept to comic professionals as our guests, aside from RVD who was at our last show and would love to come back.

 

We worry that having media guests takes the focus off comics, so if we do have media guests are stipulation is that they must have worked on a comic book related movie, tv show or cartoon.

 

As for classic guests, we have two classic pre-1975 Batman artists in the works at the moment... I should know about them by the end of the week.

 

And CGC will definitely be at the show taking submissions. On-site is still in discussion, but hasn't been decided either way. I should know pretty soon on that as well.

 

Kevin

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