San Diego Comic Con Report #2 Howdy! I want to begin today by apologizing for not having already written more newsletters from this year's San Diego Comic-Con. Having the union fail to deliver our bins containing our 100,000 comics to our booth until after closing on Tuesday evening put us way behind in building our display for this year's show. Blessedly, we have a wonderful crew with plenty of experience, so we did manage to get everything in place for the 5 PM Wednesday opening. Since then, we have been doing our best to catch up. As regards my observations about this year's show, the biggest change is the diminishment of foot traffic in the main exhibit hall. This change has not resulted from a decrease in the number of attendees, but rather the fact that events are now being spread out over more venues. The external events that began several years ago as just peripheral amusements, have suddenly morphed into an integral part of the overall convention experience for many fans. As a result, hours that were previously spent browsing the exhibits in the main hall are now being spent across the street at places like the Amazon TV exhibit, the amusement park by PetCo Field, or over at the official convention events being held in the brand new Marriott Convention Center. Small example of people not in the hall. So you know, those venues that I just mentioned are but a few of the dozens (hundreds?) of convention-related activities that are now sited within just a couple of blocks of the convention center. As a result, there is no longer any reason to not still attend SDCC even if you fail to win a ticket in the online lottery. Much like going to Downtown Disney can be quite a fun experience without paying the exorbitant cost of going into the park itself, just hanging out in the neighborhood near the SDCC can now keep you quite entertained for all five days of the show. Another view of external events near convention. In and of itself this externalization of the convention experience creates some problems, however, as those of us who are paying top dollar to rent our booths inside the main hall (ours cost $16,200) are now finding it much harder to generate enough revenue to cover our costs. For comics dealers, the effect of this diminishment in foot traffic is magnified by the fact that the online lottery system does not distinguish between fans. This causes enormous difficulties for those of us selling products (as opposed to promoting an upcoming media property) as the percentage of fans winning tickets who are actual buyers/collectors/readers diminishes each year. This negative effect has hit critical levels early in the convention, as initial reports are that comics sales in the Gold and Silver Pavilion are down (for at least some of the comics dealers) by a staggering 50%-70% as compared to last year. Our sales are not down quite that much, but we are definitely running at a level that will put us below break even. Clearly, this is non-sustainable. On a related note, the rapaciousness of the local hotel and restaurant establishments has become increasingly vulgar. As they have come to realize that they have a captive audience during SDCC these people have taken to jacking up prices to ridiculous rates. An omelette that I purchased at a cafe in the Gaslamp for a pricy $11.95 on Monday was jacked up to $18.95 on their "special" Comic-Con menu on Tuesday. A delivery of two last minute packages from Denver (which used to be free to pick up at our hotel) was assessed a staggering $105 "handling fee" with no warning. I heard that even the Motel 8 (which used to be our lowest cost dive hotel option) had a $360 walk up rate yesterday. I used to love coming to San Diego, but this profound collective ugliness is definitely making me rethink whether Comic-Con should stay here past the end of their current contract. Returning to the topic of our own results, our convention sales have been saved this year by the huge effort that our Denver comics sorting team put into replenishing our convention bins during the week prior to the convention. Those two very large private collections that I purchased earlier this month greatly expanded the breadth of our 1980-2016 selections, so we have been doing far better than otherwise might have been the case. Pam, and her inventory team in Denver, have also been working quite diligently this week to keep adding thousands of great older comics into our online inventory into our absence. As a result, our annual dip in sales that typically accompanies our departure to San Diego has been greatly mitigated. If you have not browsed through our Premium New-In-Stock link this week, I highly recommend that you do so immediately. We have thousands of comics available today that have been out of stock for a year, or more. I will close by quickly mentioning that our annual 50% off SANDIEGO! codeword sale ends next Monday, at noon. Another sale will be announced on Monday, but it will need to be at a lower discount. Happy collecting! Chuck Rozanski, President - Mile High Comics, Inc. July 23, 2016 P.S. Here are two photos that I think clearly illustrate the diminishment of traffic at the SDCC. The first is from 2013, while the second is from noon, today. When traffic on Saturday is this weak at a venue that claims to be the world's largest comics convention, some is definitely wrong. 2013 booth Saturday at noon This year's booth Saturday at noon Current Newsletter