Our pals at the SDCC Unofficial blog tipped us off to something we used to peruse with much interest: The San Diego Convention Center’s annual report. In years past, when the San Diego Comic-Con was struggling to stay in San Diego, and trying to provide its value to the community, this report was often a bit of an enigma. Back in the day it often didn’t mention Comic-Con at all, proof that the fan event wasn’t really something officials wanted to acknowledge for several years.
Of course, all that has changed. SDCC has the biggest economic impact of any event held at the convention center, with $161.1 million in revenue generated for the 2023 show. (The report covers the fiscal year running from July 1 2023 to June 30, 2024.) The city loves the con as much as the con loves the city, and even with a contract renewal coming up, no one seriously thinks the event will be forced to move to a different city any more.
The report did give me a chance to dig in to some numbers however. With travel and hotel costs rising, just how much to Comic-Coners spend compared to other trade show attendees?
In 2023, Comic-Con’s 135,000 attendees spent $161.1 million, for an average of $1193 per person. This number seems a bit low, but when you factor in that locals can stay at home, and room sharing is the rule, it does track. I spent more than on my hotel room, but I also stayed six nights and shared it with two other people (and made a podcast about it.) That doesn’t leave much for food, but everyone goes to Ralphs, and many graze on snacks at parties or hit Subway.
The #2 show on the list is the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (doctors who study blood and blood disorders), which drew 28,000 attendees who had $125.4 million in regional impact, or $4464 per person. Although this is way more than Comic-Con, it is safe to assume that the blood doctors stay one to a room, and probably have a nice hot meal every evening, something this humble reporter can only dream of at Comic-Con.
And what about hotels? As it happens the 2024 annual ASH meeting is taking place RIGHT AT THIS MOMENT, and the page for their hotel reservations is still up! I compared a few of the hotel rates, and the blood doctors are paying the same as comic-connies. That said, when planning to attend, they can probably go on the travel page and select their preferred hotel and number of room nights, and then go about their day, unlike the gut-churning, nerve wracking experience that is Hoteloween/Hotelpocalypse. And curiously, a few more hotels are available for ASH than SDCC, for whatever reason.
Future hotel room rates are the biggest concern in the upcoming contract renewal for SDCC. Hotel rates are rising everywhere, but keeping them in line with regular rates, and not jacking them up for SDCC is absolutely a key element for attendees who probably don’t make as many as hematologists, on average.
I didn’t figure out all the per person spending for the top 10 events, but I did figure out the one for ESRI, which is an event for people who use GIS geospatial mapping software, and one that long ago supposedly had a bigger impact than Comic-Con. Esri’s event is actually held literally right before Comic-Con, in July, and their 17,835 map makers spent $54.1 million, for an average of $3027 per person.
I’m afraid I went down a bit of a rabbit hole on this one, discovering that the star map maker at the show is named Jack Dangermondfounder of ESRI, and you can submit your own maps, and there’s a website that shows these user generated submissionsincluding one called Where’s Mittens.
ANYHOO, there’s one other show on the Top Ten that’s of interest to this report, the annual American Library Association show, which moves around but was held in SD last year. 13,532 librarians spent $43 million, an average of $3177. More than the map makers! However the ALA show is six days long, compared to four days for ASH and five for ESRI. Of course, SDCC is a five day event, or for some, all week.
What does all this number crunching mean? Well, #1, that I spend way too much time analyzing the San Diego convention business. But this all ties in to the highly controversial plan to expand the convention center – an idea that now looks pretty much dead BUT a recent legal ruling was a win for the previous expansion plans. Voters did support a ballot measure that would raise hotel taxes to fund the expansion, but the vote was back in 2020 so……who knows? With a record setting $1.5 billion in economic impact in fiscal 23-24 for 80 events at the convention center, maybe the idea will be raised again someday – it’s really the only way Comic-Con can get any bigger, with attendance capped at 135,000 for many years.
In the meantime, San Diego is a lovely town and people like visiting and spending money there. And as the SDCC blog reminds us….only 226 days to go until Comic-Con!
