The Zoology of SE Conventions

It happens every year.  This year, it seems that it is occuring more so. People have this expectation that CC will become another Dragon*Con or people want to compare CC with Dragon*con.  ARRRRGGH!  We’re not Dragon*Con and we’ll never be.

One way to analyze this is to look at Dragon*Con like the beast is is named after.  It’s food are convention goers and their dollars.  The beast known as Dragon*Con eats 40,00 to 60,000 con-goers and the money they bring.  I estimate an average person spends betweeen $1000 and $2000 at Dragon*Con.  Do the math. That really thins out the food potential for any beast of the same size or close to it in the same area (the entire South East).

Most con-goers go to ONE big con a year.  There is a reason we don’t have a Comic Con like New York and San Diego has.  Because we already have one.  If they attempted a Comic Con in the southeast, one of these beasts would have to die.  The food supply would thin out for one or the other.

So ConCarolinas has no expectation of ever becoming a DragonCon.  That’s too large of a con to build up to when we already have staff problems, support issues and no one really willing to handle the business end of this con. We are more like the smaller creatures that feed off when D*C leaves behind 🙂 or … outside of the creature metaphor and more into a sports metaphor … we’re like the regular seasons games leading up to the super bowl.

When the market can bare it, another DragonCon will rise, I am sure.  But the market will produce it, just like it produced Dragon*Con.  I do not think that the original planners had thought D*C would turn into such a beast.  If you go back and look at the numbers, it just exploded in the first couple of years.  I went to D*C ’89 and it was big back then.  The market was obviously hungry for something like D*C.

On top of that, I think that D*C has a reputation and a long term following that any new competition would have to over-come.  Love it or hate it, D*C has a emmense following that would have to be persuaded not to go to D*C and instead go to the new con for whatever reason.  Unlikely.

It’s simply math at this point.  People have to look at the realities of the market and the realities of convention organizing.  It’s hard to deal with, but it’s the truth.