National Locations Announced Through 2019

[BruceWayne]

Originally Posted by travrosty

They need to spruce it up and give people new reasons to go.

comicon is as popular as ever.

Hey Travis,

Very funny about your proposed locations but I wanted to focus on this part of your quote. I agree and I have a theory in this regard. When I go to the National I can't help but notice there are very few young people/kids who attend. I am not saying there are NO kids, just that there are much less than one would expect at a National Convention of this nature.

I think one of the reasons for this is that the younger generation is growing up in a world completely different than ours. Their world is full of interaction (video games, etc) and the idea of looking at static images on pieces of cardboard is not very attractive to them. In fact, I gave my son, who is now 16, a number of 1960s and 1970s baseball cards of star players (Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Pete Rose, etc) when he was younger and he said "Thanks Dad, that's really nice." However, that night the cards went into his dresser drawer and I don't think he ever looked at them again. I simply don't think trading cards grab the imagination of the youth like it did in our day.

With that said, I think one thing that would truly increase the attendance at our conventions is to offer more interactive components for the youth. I still don't understand why we couldn't have companies like EA Sports and others there with interactive sports related games. I understand our industry is about nostalgia but I don't think we will truly reach our youth with this hobby unless we offer them more than what we are now. That's not to say things like "case breaks" are not appealing to some of the younger people who like to rip wax but I really think the interactive nature of the Comic Con is one of the reasons it is so popular and always draws huge numbers of people.

Just my thoughts.