Tag: comic-CONversation

by Mike Scigliano So after what amounts to close to a year of preparation and work, the 2012 edition of the Long Beach Comic & Horror Con has come and gone. I've spent the...

by Mike Scigliano Having a great show that features a superb guest list, awesome panels, quality exhibitors and much more is every comicon's goal. Making sure everyone knows all that is another story. When all...

The team at Long Beach Comic & Horror Con has spent much of the last week working on booking new dates for 2013. We discovered that Stan Lee's Comikaze had booked our traditional dates for 2013 and we needed to decide what the best course of action was for LBCHC. When it came down to it the answer was a lot easier than you'd expect. Do we stick with our dates and get ready for a battle or look into new dates for 2013? Our immediate thought was that staying put is not fair to ANYONE. Attendees are forced to choose. Our partners, our exhibitors, and creators, are then all put in the middle and forced to choose where they will be. It will cost LBCHC more money and will certainly result in less than desired results from not only our comicon but for Stan Lee's Comikaze as well. Everyone loses. And that's just not how we conduct business. We have our attendees and partners to consider as we do when making any major decision about LBCHC. And frankly, we just don't do 'Con Wars.'

There's a point in every comicon production process where things get real. The utter insanity of what you have undertaken becomes concrete. Booking your first exhibitor is a great high. Each subsequent booking continues that awesome feeling of things going well. That is until you get your first email or phone call from an attendee. Once that happens there is NO going back. The cat's out of the bag so to speak. It's at that point that you come to the realization that what you've been working so hard on for the last few months is now out there for public consumption. It was a very surreal moment for Martha, Phil and I for sure.

By now you've gone through all the hard work involved with the pre-production of your comicon. You have a venue and dates for your show. You've got a floor plan design that you feel happy about AND was approved by the fire marshal. The next step in the process is to begin to promote and pitch your show to potential exhibitors. By "exhibitors," I mean publishers, small press publishers, retailers, artist alley creators (artists, writers, inkers, colorists, painters, etc) and whoever else you feel might be a fit or want to exhibit at your comicon. For Long Beach Comic & Horror Con we place a specific emphasis on comics and their creators in our Artist Alley. That emphasis varies from comicon to comicon, of course, but for us it was a must.