Why Celebration V will be elsewhere?

[lazypadawan]

When L.A. was selected to host Celebration IV, I heard from a number of people who said that the deal with the Los Angeles Convention Center was for multiple conventions. I haven't seen the contract, so I can't verify if it's true or if there was only the option to come back if Lucasfilm and GenCon wanted to.

Now that GenCon is out of the picture and Steve Sansweet told an audience at Jedi-Con last weekend that they are looking at Midwestern and Eastern locations, it appears Celebration won't be back in the City of Angels any time soon. Celebration IV had the highest attendance of any Celebration, even without a new movie. Most attendees liked the facility. I thought it was quantum leaps better than the crowded little convention center in Indianapolis. So, aside from the break with GenCon, what happened?

quidawn might have found out. She fired off an e-mail to Dustin at TFN over some snarky comment about Celebration IV in L.A. (which seems to have been edited out since the original posting, because I didn't find it) and he responded. He claims nobody made money at the con:

The bottom line for LA was that nobody made money, period. So I'm pretty certain they will not be returning. I know if I was a vendor and set up shop at a show only to lose money, I would not return. That straddled with a low turn out for vendors due to high costs made it a smaller show in a sense, even though it was in a huge facility, there were no where near as many vendors. For example, do you recall where the X-wing was set up in the fan hall? At C3 Official Pix had that much space alone, but at C4 they were lumped with the other vendor area because they didn't sell nearly as many booths.

There weren't as many vendors because there weren't as many licensees. I didn't go to CIII but I remember half of the booths on the floor, maybe even more than half, at CII were licensees. Back then there was a new movie coming out. There wasn't a new movie in 2007. As for the part about vendors losing money, who knows? Anyone with more insight?

Comments

[ladyaeryn.livejournal.com]

The idea of a more central locale I'm cool with because I liked roadtripping to C3 (though I didn't mind flying to LA), but the weather and facilities in LA were a DEFINITE plus over C3. It rained every blasted day in Indy; I'm amazed Lindsay and I didn't get hypothermia.

So with GenCon out of the way, might I actually get my badge this time around? Heh. :P

[lazypadawan.livejournal.com]

We'll see how things go with Celebration Japan first ;).

[jawajames.livejournal.com]

random thought on vendors not being happy - perhaps with the cost of LA for attendees, they spent more on staying at the convention and less on vendor's merchandise. or maybe they just focused less on the exhibitor's hall (frankly, there wasn't that much to see there) and more on the programming and such.

i wonder if the attendance hit a different demographic in LA than in Indy - were the casual day-tripping attendees in LA less likely to buy stuff than the casual day-tripping attendees in Indy. I would imagine that most LA residents who buy SW stuff have better access in general to higher-end SW merchandise (being in a major major city) than perhaps those in the Midwest. or perhaps LA guests are more interested in the stars than in the stuff - you'll notice that the midwest has a lot of collector clubs, while here we don't have as many collector clubs, but general fan clubs - we spend all our income on housing instead of toys ;)

random thoughts to explain it.

[lazypadawan.livejournal.com]

I noticed a lot of those vendors are also at Comic Con. I know I put off some purchases, knowing that I'll see the same guys in July.