Comic-Con Reups San Diego 5 More Years

The city’s contract with Comic-Con expires in 2012 and there’d been considerable speculation that the pop culture convention might come north. (Will Comic-Con Move From San Diego To Anaheim Or LA?) Nope. The San Diego Union-Tribune is confirming that San Diego and Comic-Con International today will announce a new contract for another 5 years. It “hinged on detailed contracts negotiated with the 64 convention block hotels committing them to prescribed, discounted rates through 2015. Concerns had arisen in recent years that some local hotels took undue advantage of the enormously popular event by charging excessively high rates, especially in downtown where rooms sell out quickly during the four-day July confab”. The 130,000 geeks, freaks, and showbiz meet-‘n’-greets send $163M into San Diego coffers, and word was that LA offered convention space for free. “At one point, competition for the convention grew so fierce that Los Angeles and Anaheim tourism officials launched dueling Facebook fan pages designed to demonstrate the depth of their commitment to nabbing Comic-Con.”

Even The Simpsons joked about comic-Con moving. (When fat Comic Book Guy was mocked by Lisa for not conforming to the “jolly” stereotype, he responded that nobody could be happy if they knew Comic-Con might move to Anaheim.) Even Comic-Con’s director of PR, David Glanzer, told Deadline’s Comic-Con correspondent Luke Y Thompson this summer that “We were born in San Diego, we’d really like to stay in San Diego: we just have serious challenges.” But for several years now, Comic-Con International used Anaheim and LA as a negotiating tactic to score a better deal. But Glanzer claims claims a waiting list of 400-600 exhibitors who want to get in but can’t for lack of space.