Comic book fans, celebrities and superheroes will descend on San Diego for several more summers. Comic-Con officials have decided to stay in town for at least five more years.
DWANE BROWN: Joining us on Morning Edition is KPBS film critic Beth Accomando. Beth, why did event officials wait so long to make this announcement?
BETH ACCOMANDO (KPBS Film Critic): Well, it's a complicated decision because Comic-Con never wanted to move -- I mean, they're a San Diego-based company. This event has been here for more than three decades, but they really felt forced to look elsewhere because of the space problems with the current convention center. There just wasn't enough room to put on all their programming and to accomodate the 125,000 fans that come, and more who get turned away. So I think it was a decision that they were taking a long time to make because they really wanted to stay, but they needed to have San Diego make some concessions, and make some attempts to address these issues of space, and hotel room costs, but one thing I think a lot of people don't realize is that Comic-Con depends on about 2,000-3,000 volunteers that, you know, a good number of them come from San Diego, and to relocate and re-find that kind of support somewhere else is really difficult. So, yeah, I think they made their decision as quickly as they could, but it was, you know, a rather complex one because it did take into account so many different things.
BROWN: And what was the key concession?
ACCOMANDO: I believe it's really addressing two things, which is expansion of the convention center so there's more space, and the hotel costs, that the hotels locally would try to keep those costs down rather than jacking up their rates during the five-day convention.
BROWN: KPBS Film Critic Beth Accomando, telling us Comic-Con staying in San Diego for at least five more years.
