March 4, 2009
Wondercon 2009: Day 3
This is probably gonna get ranty, so let’s get to it:
The Good: The programming schedule had very few major shifts over the weekend, and the fans were pretty hospitable. The city returned the favor, welcoming the extra boost of business that the con brought into town.
The Bad: I still think there should be breaks between panels, but apparently I’m challenging tradition on that one, so we have to stick with the fire code challenging, line violating back-to-back structure that this convention seems to live by. Of more concern are…
The numbers: The poor economy has hit this con, and most vendors and artists confirmed that yes, they are making less money than in years past. Others remarked on the smaller size of the booths and the decidedly scaled-down promotional efforts of some of the bigger companies. Will the trend continue at other conventions? We shall see.
Wrap: When I first started attending cons (Anime Iowa 1997 was my first, for those keeping score), I was told of the dichotomy between “fan” cons and “corporate” cons. A “corporate” con, as I was told, was a convention where the needs of the sponsors were set before the fans because the convention relied on their sponsorship dollars. While it is certain that cons like Anime Expo, San Diego Comic Con, and Wondercon are corporate in this way, having attended these cons has reminded me that these events were still founded by fans and are, for the most part, staffed by them. In this day and age, fans are increasingly fickle with their hard earned cash, which makes the whole “100% fan supported” convention model difficult to implement on a large scale. Furthermore, having corporate sponsorship of a fan-originated event creates the kind of atmosphere that a show like this needs. You get the feeling that the sponsors are coming to the “fan’s turf,” so to speak.
Perhaps that’s why I enjoyed Wondercon. The balance between the fan-centric mood of a smaller con and the need for advertising dollars felt right. We need these kinds of conventions, especially since Reed Exhibitions and their “let’s just spend a ton of money to make sure every big name comes to our con, that way the fans can’t ignore us” business methodology has shown us just what a “corporate con” can entail (and how much it can suck). Despite the tough economic times, things never felt artificial, events ran late into the night, and the public was encouraged to attend late-night events at other locations that were reasonably priced (as opposed to the ludicrously overpriced “post-convention dinner” at New York Anime Festival).
Although tough times seemed to affect morale in many places of the convention, the feeling at the end of the event was the same: mutual appreciation that was expressed by the attendees and exhibitors alike. As the PA system announced the closing of the event hall, applause could be heard from every table and corner of the Moscone Center. Although I was a little apprehensive about my first comic convention experience at first, in the end, I was more than happy to applaud the convention with everyone else.
The good: The word from PIxar’s Up panel is good: fans sound pretty happy with what Pixar has planned for the summer. Hopefully this means we won’t be seeing something on the level of, say, Cars 2. Elsewhere, the convention stayed extremely busy on its second day as fans packed the exhibit hall floor and filled panel rooms to capacity. Despite this - and this is quite frankly the most impressive thing about this show - I never saw a line for food that stretched to insane lengths (which I have seen and experienced at every other major con I’ve been to… ever). Whoever made this happen deserves a handsome raise and a lifetime of free massages. Good ones.