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Wizard World San Antonio -- August 1-3, 2014

Started by mysterio,

86 posts in this topic

Ajl007

Ajl007

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I was talking to some comic store owners in San Antonio, their words were F##$ Wizard, when the average price of booths at shows is in the low 200's and even Alamo City this year at 300.00, no one will get booths when a booth at Alamo City is the same price as an Artist Alley table at Wizard, they will not pay 1000.00 for a booth, plus another thing is its bad to open a con in early august in San Antonio, I guess they never heard of tax free weekend and back to school.

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mysterio

mysterio

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Yeah, Wizard's booth prices are always crazy, but then they also seem to have booths that they must give away for big discounts too (probably when scrambling at the last minute to fill booth space that is unsold). WW Austin always has booths of people selling 25 cent sticks of incense or loose legos, and you know those folks aren't paying $1,000 for those booths if they have any business sense.

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Trev

Trev

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Since they moved to austin and unveiled the new format, I have been unimpressed. Maybe when they saw that other regional shows were popping up and using their format they just decided to do it themselves?

 

 

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mysterio

mysterio

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I'm not sure what would be unique about Wizard's format, other than the heavier reliance on "stars" of other entertainment outside of comics that would have pretty strong crossover appeal to comic fans and those who aren't comic fans. But the basic model, giving vendors space to sell their wares at an event with celebrities signing autographs to draw people in, is the tried and true comic convention model.

 

Perhaps the only other innovation by Wizard is to price their booth space high enough to prevent most dealers from even considering setting up at one of their shows, and I'm still confused by this rationale as they could normally put many more booths into the convention floors they have.

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Trev

Trev

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I'm not sure what would be unique about Wizard's format, other than the heavier reliance on "stars" of other entertainment outside of comics that would have pretty strong crossover appeal to comic fans and those who aren't comic fans. But the basic model, giving vendors space to sell their wares at an event with celebrities signing autographs to draw people in, is the tried and true comic convention model.

 

Perhaps the only other innovation by Wizard is to price their booth space high enough to prevent most dealers from even considering setting up at one of their shows, and I'm still confused by this rationale as they could normally put many more booths into the convention floors they have.

 

I think the main difference is as you pointed out -- the heavier reliance on 'celebrities' and putting them front and center and moving comics to the margin. The reason the table price is so high is so they can recover facility and guest costs a bit. Remember that they are a for profit operation.

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mysterio

mysterio

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I'm not sure what would be unique about Wizard's format, other than the heavier reliance on "stars" of other entertainment outside of comics that would have pretty strong crossover appeal to comic fans and those who aren't comic fans. But the basic model, giving vendors space to sell their wares at an event with celebrities signing autographs to draw people in, is the tried and true comic convention model.

 

Perhaps the only other innovation by Wizard is to price their booth space high enough to prevent most dealers from even considering setting up at one of their shows, and I'm still confused by this rationale as they could normally put many more booths into the convention floors they have.

 

I think the main difference is as you pointed out -- the heavier reliance on 'celebrities' and putting them front and center and moving comics to the margin. The reason the table price is so high is so they can recover facility and guest costs a bit. Remember that they are a for profit operation.

 

Makes sense, but at $100 for a lot of these 3 or 4 day passes plus $1000 table rates they are more than covering costs and making a healthy profit. If it were me, all things being equal I'd rather sell 100 tables at $500 per than 50 tables at $1000 per, better to bring in more dealers and more merchandise, and therefore make more shoppers happy who will then be more inclined to visit your next show.

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kaholo1256

kaholo1256

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Wizard World's issue with me is how much the upcharge is for everything. I mean right now I had to pay $500 for a VIP ticket for Stan Lee which is almost $200 more than I paid last year for the same ticket. Aside from a few small perks i'm not getting anything gigantic out of the deal compared to the last one so why the huge leap in cost.

 

I do enjoy myself at Wizard World but also wished they would drop the act of still trying to label themselves Comic Con's and call themselves what they are. A Pop Culture Con or something to that effect. They spend more on the celeb's to attend and seem to always pander to them more when it comes to the overall vibe once inside. My biggest upside right now for why I am attending WWAustin this year again is for Stan Lee, Neal Adams, Dennis O'Neil, and Greg Capullo. If the first three didn't attend I probably would have thrown in the towel for it.

 

I just hope that with the Con's of WW San Antonio and WW Austin being so close that there isn't a huge amount of overlap for artists. For now though I am happy that there are a few alternatives in Texas with Dallas Fan Days twice a year, Alamo City which looks like it has some great artists as well as good celeb's, and next years Capital City in Austin.

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THB

THB

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The jury is still out on ACCC...the hype may make the reality underwhelming. I have high hopes for them though and I am just happy that we finally have some cons in San Antonio. Hopefully there will be a lot and a variety of "comic" vendors at any con with comic in their name.

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kaholo1256

kaholo1256

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So far from the list of Comic Creators listed I am starting to look forward to this show.

 

Mike Grell coupled with Neal Adams should be a hit for any Green Lantern/Green Arrow Fan. Hopefully they will coordinate with the Hero Initiative and bring back Denny O'Neil for this one as well and to me that would make me attend this Con without looking for any other creators.... They got him to WWA this year...

 

Stuart Sayger is another huge win for me as well especially for my blank cover collection. If you have never seen his art on a blank then you are sorely in need of checking him out. Tried to get something from him when he was announced on the WWA this past year but sadly his name was pulled not long after.

 

Jorge Molina's a cool one for me with some newer AvX, New Mutants, and Generation Hope issues needing some love for slabage as well as Steve Skroce on some older Cable issues and what not.

 

Ethan Van Sciver is a good win for me as well but if I run low on funds at Dallas Sci-Fi I can look for him here as well. Really looking for a good blank sketching from him as well as a few Sig's on some New X-Men issues he did.

 

Over all its a great start for being 8 months out and hoping they will bring a few more older creators to the area as well.

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