Wizard World Austin 2013 Report

[Sarfa]

We got to the Austin convention center about 10:15 and had to get our tickets. What was crazy about this is we had pre-ordered 2 adult tickets online and were needing to buy an adult ticket. The pre-order pickup line took over an hour to go through. The onsite purchase line had 2 people in it.

 

We get inside and my friends wanted to get a picture op and signature from Norman Reedus. We the photo ops were sold out for the entire weekend. So they managed to get 4th in line of the general admission line for the signatures. After waiting in line for almost 5 hours, they shut it down and no signature. Oh well.

 

Me on the other hand, I got to submit a book to CGC for the first time. This was something I did up for a friend's up coming 40th birthday. $54 to fast track it.

 

 

So then I headed off to get Greg Capullo to sign some things. That took 1.5 hours of standing in line. And I'm grateful I got inline when I did because within 10 minutes it was twice as long as when I got inline.

Greg was awesome. He would BS with anyone and take pictures. He is very much into his fans.

 

 

There were TONS of cosplay going on. I wish I had taken more pictures of all the awesome costumes that were there, but my hands were pretty full throughout my time there. I did get to meet Jonathan Glapion, who was really my main reason for going to the con in the first place. But didn't manage to get a picture with him damnit!

 

Found my buddy Tim Vigil, whom I didn't even know was going to be at the show because Wizard didn't list him on the website as an attending artist.

 

 

And then finally I got my Batman 227 and 251 signed by Mr. Neal Adams who joked with me about someday growing up to be Mr. Stan Lee and charge $80 for 2 seconds of your life to scribble you name on something.

 

 

After that, I lost my friends and spent 2 hours trying to find them since all of their cellphones had died while in the con.

[mysterio]

 

And then finally I got my Batman 227 and 251 signed by Mr. Neal Adams who joked with me about someday growing up to be Mr. Stan Lee and charge $80 for 2 seconds of your life to scribble you name on something.

 

 

 

Because apparently it isn't cool enough to be Neal Adams and get a measly $20 for 2 seconds of your life to scribble your name on something. I had a book for him to sign with a space for him clearly marked, and the $20 didn't even include reading comprehension as he tried to sign it right over Denny O'Neil's signature.

[Low Grade Guy]

Amazing show, just perfectly organized. Can't wait for 2014.

 

Huh? I thought the show was very unorganized from the moment I walked in the lobby and didn't appreciate the staff yelling at everyone. Isles were way too small. Food and drink was way over priced.

[Monster's Lair Comics]

Amazing show, just perfectly organized. Can't wait for 2014.

 

Huh? I thought the show was very unorganized from the moment I walked in the lobby and didn't appreciate the staff yelling at everyone. Isles were way too small. Food and drink was way over priced.

 

Exactly , wizard staff were acting like jackwagons all weekend long. To paying attendees and paying dealers ( who lay out over a grand to be there ). I wish they would hold two shows, one that has nothing to do with comics, and is just a celebrity show, and the other that is just comic dealers. Charge $100 a day for the celebrity show, and $10 a day for the comic show. That's how they are allocating their resources now anyway, and people there for comics won't get overcharged for something called a comic con with 6 comic dealers in the whole show.

[JorgeRR96]

I would love to see if Wizard can change their name to Wizard World ______ Celebrity Con so we all could be happy.

[yoddler]

Maybe my tolerance level is higher, but I didn't experience or see any bad behavior from the staff. Then again, lots of stuff just goes over my head.

 

And as far as segregating the shows between "entertainment" and "comics" I think that would be a great idea so long as you don't want the hobby to grow and have new people coming into it.

 

I saw lots of newbies ask questions and window shop, but I also saw many of them buy comics. This is a good thing, yes?

 

I do agree organization could have been better, but I saw the same thing at Boston Comic Con... long lines, crowds, etc. That one and the Austin con have been the only two I've attended -- it seemed to me they just weren't prepared for the huge amount of growth in attendance they experienced. Growth no doubt attributed to the success of the modern super-hero movie and the more general acceptance of this kind of media in the general population. Again, a good thing probably.

 

But as someone who's attended SXSW for many years, and large-scale festival events like Lalapalooza and ACL Fest, the Austin Comic Con was actually still quite quaint in comparison!

 

 

[DigsUT]

I was pretty happy with my time spent at the show. Typical logistics issues that could have been handled better, especially from an organization that puts on Cons all the damn time.

 

I agree that the vendor area could have been spaced out a bit better, but with careful navigation, you could get through the bottlenecks with relative ease.

 

If you were willing to brave the elements, getting food was not an issue at all. There were several restaurants within walking distance and it did not cost much more than the horrifically overpriced pizza that was being offered.

 

This was by far not the worse show I have been to, but I have never ventured out of Texas to attend one, so my experience is fairly limited in that respect.

[Sarfa]

Huh? I thought the show was very unorganized from the moment I walked in the lobby and didn't appreciate the staff yelling at everyone. Isles were way too small. Food and drink was way over priced.

 

DEAD ON! Super unorganized and food was WAY over priced. I understand the concept of paying to play. But seriously $11 for a slice of pizza and bottle of coke.

[Monster's Lair Comics]

 

And as far as segregating the shows between "entertainment" and "comics" I think that would be a great idea so long as you don't want the hobby to grow and have new people coming into it.

 

 

I want the hobby to grow too, but talking to many dealers, they have found the extra crowds to not help with sales. If you have 50 cent boxes maybe, but the cost threshold is only for cheap stuff. For dealers who cater to comic collectors and bring quality material, the sales are not better with a larger crowd. Many of these new attendees to shows are only interested in the "comic con" experience, and not interested in the comics (illustrated by the fact they use the free comic they get with paid attendance as a fly swatter or napkin). Its a weird dynamic, that I thought would help the hobby, but has only brought in "fans" that want t-shirts, costumes, stuffed animals, and their pictures taken with funny backgrounds (wasn't there like 4 booths that were doing slow mo pics or fantasy pics, ect?).

[yoddler]

Sorry, I didn't mean "you" specifically, just the general "you"...

 

I suppose if big crowds of non-collectors keep the hard-core collectors away, then maybe they should rethink it, otherwise the more eyes and wallets on comics the better?

 

I'm not a dealer -- their opinions count 1000000x more than mine on this subject!

[Dale Roberts]

Amazing show, just perfectly organized. Can't wait for 2014.

 

Huh? I thought the show was very unorganized from the moment I walked in the lobby and didn't appreciate the staff yelling at everyone. Isles were way too small. Food and drink was way over priced.

 

Exactly , wizard staff were acting like jackwagons all weekend long. To paying attendees and paying dealers ( who lay out over a grand to be there ). I wish they would hold two shows, one that has nothing to do with comics, and is just a celebrity show, and the other that is just comic dealers. Charge $100 a day for the celebrity show, and $10 a day for the comic show. That's how they are allocating their resources now anyway, and people there for comics won't get overcharged for something called a comic con with 6 comic dealers in the whole show.

 

Its sort of a self defeating cycle. I have done Austin a couple of times in the past, but the show, while well attended, is pretty mediocre as far as sales, especially as far as I have to travel. I will probably give it another try at some point.

 

If the sales were better, you would see plenty of dealers there. If you have a lot of dealers there, and not many customers, it works out only for the customer. If there are a lot of customers, and not many dealers, that works out well for the dealers. I suspect there were an appropriate number of comic dealers for the amount of comic customers.

 

 

I haven't really heard any dealers comment on how the sales were. Hopefully they did well. Sometimes these shows take a few years to hit there peak as well. I know Wizard is going to try to make an effort to get more modern comic dealers to their shows, as at many of the 2nd tier shows, that is a market which is not being filled.

[Spideydan]

Nice pics' thanks for sharing...

[boomtown]

I drove up from San Antonio on Saturday morning. We walked in right before it opened, spend about 5 minutes getting our wristbands & then about another 20 minutes or so in the main line before going in. The 2 or 3 staffers I spoke with were courteous & helpful. I was shocked at how quickly we got in.

 

My 16 year old daughter was all excited about it so I brought her & the wife up. My daughter has never read a comic but considers herself a comic nerd. She wears all the new Marvel T-Shirts & sweats, she loves Captain America (errr I mean Chris Evans) & she is a big Walking Dead fan without ever reading the book ("If Daryl dies we riot!").

 

I got to meet Neal Adams & Greg Land. Wanted to get a family photo Simpsonized but didn't feel like standing in line. Saw the New York dealer with the crazy hair (Carrobona?) Thought Mile Highs set up was cool (and over priced), then again, all of it was over priced. Missed Micheal Golden, was he there Saturday?

 

I'm not going to pay $30 for an autographed print or anywhere close to guide on the stuff I collect so I knew I wasn't going to be spending much. Mostly I followed my daughter around as she geeked out whenever she would see someone in costume or a star from Walking Dead. That was the fun part, seeing everything through her eyes. I don't get excited anymore but she was a blast. We had fun, but the $150 to get the 3 of us in (me, wife, daughter) was excessive.

 

 

[Dale Roberts]

I drove up from San Antonio on Saturday morning. We walked in right before it opened, spend about 5 minutes getting our wristbands & then about another 20 minutes or so in the main line before going in. The 2 or 3 staffers I spoke with were courteous & helpful. I was shocked at how quickly we got in.

 

My 16 year old daughter was all excited about it so I brought her & the wife up. My daughter has never read a comic but considers herself a comic nerd. She wears all the new Marvel T-Shirts & sweats, she loves Captain America (errr I mean Chris Evans) & she is a big Walking Dead fan without ever reading the book ("If Daryl dies we riot!").

 

I got to meet Neal Adams & Greg Land. Wanted to get a family photo Simpsonized but didn't feel like standing in line. Saw the New York dealer with the crazy hair (Carrobona?) Thought Mile Highs set up was cool (and over priced), then again, all of it was over priced. Missed Micheal Golden, was he there Saturday?

 

I'm not going to pay $30 for an autographed print or anywhere close to guide on the stuff I collect so I knew I wasn't going to be spending much. Mostly I followed my daughter around as she geeked out whenever she would see someone in costume or a star from Walking Dead. That was the fun part, seeing everything through her eyes. I don't get excited anymore but she was a blast. We had fun, but the $150 to get the 3 of us in (me, wife, daughter) was excessive.

 

 

Glad you had a good time. It takes everyone to make the world go round.

 

However, this is typical of what has been discussed in the thread. The Comic Con has become what the mall was in the 1980s and 1990s. People go there without the intent to purchase anything. They just want to be there and hang out all day. Which is fine, except some people have to be there to buy something, or eventually, there are no exhibitors and if you take that to the logical conclusion, then there will be no con.

 

 

[blazingbob]

Yup, 6 dealers that do the show with vintage material because if 20 dealers were there nobody would make any money.

 

If collectors want dealers at the show then show up and buy books. But hey, why do that when we can sit at home on the internet and buy whatever we want. Or we can complain that the dealers at the show didn't have what they want even though they could have emailed the dealer going to the show to bring what he was looking for.

 

Yup, round and round we go on this. Wizard sucks for trying to make money and bring shows to cities that never had them.

 

 

[blazingbob]

The show was terrible, stay home.

[DrWatson]

The show was terrible, stay home.

So was the weather, we did.

 

[Sarfa]

Micheal Golden was there on Saturday. I watched him work on a custom cover for someone for 15 minutes and not one single person walked up to him while I was checking out his stuff. Rob and crew from Chew, basically the same thing. The main thing that seemed to get people to his table was to have him sign the Walking Dead variant they got free with paid admission.

 

When Wizard World was in Arlington, there were TONS of dealers. At least 30 to 50 dealers in the main hall. The Artist Alley / Celebrity booth section was much bigger. They still did movie and tv stuff in other parts of the convention center, along with Q&A Panels, etc... You could find awesome deals on back issues, older books, toys and statues, clothing etc. At this show, not only could the dealers not afford to really do any great deals because of their overhead, the customers had to really think about their purchases of regular or even inflated prices on top of the high priced admission and very limited selections because of the lack of dealers.

 

It was MUCH more organized, crowd friendly, reasonably priced admission as well as the fees for vendors and artists to attend. Like I mentioned in my original post here, Tim Vigil, while listed in the little handout wasn't listed as an attending artist. It cost him $1200 to be at the show plus travel, lodging and meals for the 3 day. Which means he had to sell $1200 worth of books, prints, artwork and sketches in that time just to break even. Wizard certainly didn't do him any favors.

[Monster's Lair Comics]

Yup, 6 dealers that do the show with vintage material because if 20 dealers were there nobody would make any money.

 

If collectors want dealers at the show then show up and buy books. But hey, why do that when we can sit at home on the internet and buy whatever we want. Or we can complain that the dealers at the show didn't have what they want even though they could have emailed the dealer going to the show to bring what he was looking for.

 

Yup, round and round we go on this. Wizard sucks for trying to make money and bring shows to cities that never had them.

 

 

I spent plenty of money at WW Chicago. Chock full of beautiful books. I guess it's a different market in every city. Chicago has always been a big show for great books for a long time. Austin still has to be finding it's stride. I usually look for "good books" first, and if I can't find anything to fit my collection, I go flipping through boxes. With no boxes to flip through, kinda takes the fun out of it. I love going to cons, but the cons are changing. It's an adjustment I guess I haven't accepted yet. I hope the con comes around as I like to have somewhat local shows, but if not, I don't have to go. I plan on going to the Tulsa show, just to see what it has to offer. A more central show, more dealers I would think....

[Foolkiller]

Thought the Austin show was slow.

 

Greg, Bob and Richard had the best stuff.

 

Two small dealers had some really interesting things. Friday at 7 PM I went digging through a dealer with lots of long boxes and found tons of great stuff, wish I hit them in the morning, and he priced with very friendly prices. Dug out nice:

 

ASM 121

Batman 386

2 Batman 368s

3 ASM 361s

1 ASM 300

4 Swamp Thing 37s

 

as a sample. Ran out of time. Wish I had time to dig out tons more stuff... there was lots of good material. Best deals were on modern keys.