Some dudes just really like potatoes, you know?
Category: Entertainment
Comic-Con Economy: What a Difference a Decade Makes
SDCC Blog reports that Comic-Con International is expected to be the San Diego Convention Center’s top economic generator of 2018, “with 130,000 attendees and an estimated $147.1 million in regional impact.”
That’s a far cry from 2008, when the con was derided as “decidedly low-rent” and generated “only” $41.5 million, half the impact of the top biotech conference for the year. The rest of the top events are still medical conferences, but the #2 event, a conference by the Society for Neuroscience, is estimated to bring in $88 million.
That said, SDCC still brings in fewer dollars per person than those medical conferences (130K attendees for Comic-Con, 30K for the neuroscience event). Fans saving up all year to go somewhere for fun can’t compete against professionals with expense accounts, after all.
But it’s nice to see Comic-Con recognized as a vital contributor to San Diego’s economy instead of an embarrassing side note.
Groot, Guardian of the Internet
Groot reminds us that Net Neutrality is critical to internet freedom, and we should call Congress TODAY, before Thursday’s FCC vote to eliminate the only thing preventing your cable or phone company from blocking competition, burying news they don’t like, and shaking down startups.
Unless you trust your cable company to have your best interests at heart, head over to Battle for the Net and get Congress to remind the FCC that they work for you, not Verizon and Comcast.
Amazing what Groot can fit into just three words, isn’t it? 😉
Convention Inflation
Next year’s WonderCon tickets are available now, and SDCC goes on sale next week. I noticed something interesting about the WonderCon price, because ten years ago, I compared a lot of convention prices.
How do they stack up a decade later?
- WonderCon 2018 costs the same as Comic-Con 2008 did: $75. (WonderCon in 2008 was $30 in advance, or $40 onsite.)
- Comic-Con International has gone waaaay up. They don’t sell full-weekend badges anymore, but if you’re super-lucky you could theoretically buy one-day badges for all 4 1/2 days in 2018 (if you’re really lucky), in which case you’d be spending $45+$63×3+$42 = $276!
- Wizard World shows in general have gone from $45 in 2008 to $80 for 2018.
- Flagship Wizard World Chicago has gone from $50 in 2008 to $95 in 2018.
There are some other conventions that need to be on this list today, but weren’t on the 2008 list. Some of them are new, like C2E2. Emerald City and New York Comic Con were around, but hadn’t gotten big enough for me to include on a list that was mostly California conventions plus the big names – which at the time were SDCC and Chicago.
- C2E2 2018 costs $76.
- I can’t find the prices for New York Comic Con.
- Emerald City Comicon 2018 costs $120 for the full event.
- Long Beach Comic Con started out around the same price as a Wizard World show in 2009, and is currently $60, so a little cheaper than a Wizard World show.
- Stan Lee’s LA Comic Con launched with super-cheap tickets at something like $11/day to get people to show up (before Stan Lee’s name was attached to it), but by 2016 it was in line with other shows at $35/day. (I can’t find any prices on their website anymore, so I don’t know the full weekend price.)
So over all: comic convention prices have roughly doubled over the last 10 years, except for SDCC, which shows what happens when the demand for tickets goes up and the supply stays static. They can’t add more badges, so raising the prices encourages people to buy tickets for fewer days, freeing up space for other people on those other days. It sucks for those of us who want to buy tickets, but it’s textbook Adam Smith.
But wait! I looked at other fan conventions at the time as well!
- GenCon 2017 cost $90 for pre-reg/$120 standard, up from $60/$75 in 2008
- DragonCon 2018 cost $105, up from $90 in 2008
- WorldCon 2018 (San Jose) has only gone up to $210, compared to $200 for Denver in 2008
- WesterCon 2018 (Denver) is $60, same as in 2008!
- Loscon 2018 is $35, again, same as in 2008
These have climbed a lot less. GenCon jumped 1.5x instead of 2x, and the more traditional sci-fi/fantasy cons have only increased a little bit, if at all.
It reminds me of a discussion at Chicon 7, the last WorldCon I attended in 2012, about the changing face of fandom. Fan culture has exploded in my lifetime, but traditional sci-fi/fantasy con attendance has stayed static. Fans are interacting online, or going to anime/comic conventions instead. And that lines up very neatly with the prices of the comic conventions vs. the more traditional cons.
In any case, it’s worth noting: WorldCon is now cheaper than SDCC. And you get to vote for the Hugos!
Free Brick!
Gondor Calls For Aid!
Actually it’s just the last light of the setting sun reflecting off of a structure (the observatory?) atop Mt. Wilson. Also, you can see the sign on the Wilshire Grand tower is seriously bright, even from this far away.
Chess in Concert: Post-Cold War Edition
The cold-war musical Chess works surprisingly well set in the present day.
UCI Drama’s production is a concert staging of the show, with the orchestra and choir onstage, and the actors carrying handheld microphones with minimal props. It works well, especially for the more 80s-pop numbers like “Nobody’s Side” and the big ensemble songs like “Merano” and the chess games, though it gets a little awkward when the characters are singing to each other with microphones. (The show features two competing styles of music, achingly 80s and classical musical theater.)
The show’s structure is fluid, with vast differences between the original London and Broadway versions and later productions, and just about every version tweaking the story and moving songs around. This version largely follows the London stage version, with a few key changes:
- It’s set in the present day. This updates the USSR to Russia and drops the CIA vs KGB elements of the background game played between Walter and Molokov. Florence is the daughter of Hungarian refugees, rather than a former child refugee herself (Budapest 1956 is the only fixed date in the story.) The political stakes may be a bit lower, but the personal stakes work just as well.
- Several roles have been recast as women, including Molokova and the arbiter, which makes the show even more “alto-licious” (as Katie puts it).
- The second act drops a lot of the connections between songs (it is done as a concert, after all), which means you don’t see the breakdown of Anatoly’s and Florence’s relationship, or Anatoly cracking under the pressure, until he finds his “one true obligation.” You get the before and after but not the process.
The performances were all solid, with Molokova in particular as a standout.
An aside: I found it interesting to see an actual production of Chess at UCI, since the songs had been so popular with the musical theater crowd when I was there in the 1990s. “I Know Him So Well,” “Heaven Help My Heart,” and “Someone Else’s Story” were standards in the library, and I heard them a zillion times, while all the guys who were serious about musicals wanted to sing “Anthem.” And really, can you blame them?
I’m still not sure how well “Someone Else’s Story” works for Svetlana, but that ship has sailed. And “One Night In Bangkok,” despite being instantly recognizable to anyone who lived through the 80s, is cringe-worthy now. For this production they downplay the stereotyping by playing up the fact that it’s seen through the perspective of a total lout (Freddie). It’s still cringe-worthy, but at least it’s a character statement rather than a narrative one.
The production continues through this weekend.