Photography: K. Green
Cover Feature
some point because people would say,
‘it’s a geek fest’ in a pejorative way.
But we wear that as a badge of honour,
because we know what it is.
“People who attend Comic Con may
not hang out together any other weekend
of the year but during Comic Con they
have a great time and respect each other.
For the past several years, the show
has been maxing out capacity in San
Diego Convention Center, with tickets
for the 2019 event selling out in less
than an hour. While this may seem like
a nice problem for an organiser to have,
it presents its own set of issues. Loyal
fans are prioritised, with returning
registrants given first pick of tickets, and
Glazner hints at a new ballot initiative on
the cards for 2020.
“We’re trying to make the best of a
tough situation,” he says. “We focus
mostly on the people who are in the
building because in many cases they’ve
travelled from long distances. They want
that live experience. We’ve not really
put a lot of our panels online. That’s
something we’re going to be doing soon,
a period of time after the show. We don’t
want to turn people away. We wish we
had a bigger convention centre that could
accommodate all the people that wanted
to attend.”
While in previous years it was possible
for visitors to wander around and pop
into different panels at leisure, the big
David Glazner
sessions are now often at capacity.
“One of the great things about that
is that it allows people to have second,
third, fourth choice things they want
to do – we always tell people to expand
their areas of interest,” continues
Glazner. “Maybe go to a panel that you
don’t have an interest in or knowledge of.
Once you sit in on it, you might find out
September — 21