http://www.usatoday.com/life/2010-07-24 ... bing_N.htm


Good lord, people.

That's ridiculous...

The ripples of this are going to be felt for a while now.

One of the biggest and most common complaints I have heard about SDCC is its overcrowding and the implied feelings of being human cattle.

When you put too many people in too small a place and have them "competing" for something that they collectively hold dear, there is eventually going to be some tension and an outbreak.

It sucks that it happened. It sucks that it happens at all.

But, I'll lay dollars to donuts, the SDCC Board will use this as a key piece of information when they look at the possibilities of next years location. Guest comfort and safety may be a selling point for a new city and exhibit space.

As if there wasn't a big enough stigma associated with what we do. We now have a very tangible incident that ties into "Nerd Rage". Great....

As far as the venue changing, I'm not sure how much of a difference that will make. Even if you move the Con to an area with a much larger convention center (or a sports arena maybe?), that's not going to make the lines or the wait in them any shorter. Oddly enough, it may encourage thousands more fans to attend. Is that even possible?

Move it to Vegas and I'm there!

Considering how many people are crammed into that place year-after-year it's amazing that there haven't been more incidents like that. I don't like to minimize what happened here, but one incident like this is really nothing compared to the kind of things that happen elsewhere in events of this size or smaller... Last I read 19 people have died from being trampled at a music festival in Germany this weekend, the way I see it they don't compare...

The Germany incident reminded of those kids dying at a The Who concert in the 70's. They were trampled to death. But this SDCC thing, geez. Brawling over who gets the seat and one guy gets a pen in his socket.

Dang.

I wasn't meaning to compare the situation to that tragedy, just that "things" can happen in large gatherings of people. Sorry if I came off callous with that comparison.

Not at all, man. I know you weren't comparing them. It's just that this sort of mayhem was usually reserved for rock concerts (where I worked security) and I was fearing that the violence would spill over to crowded houses like Comic-Con someday.

Strangely enough, it didn't even occur at a comic or related panel.

Expect more of it. You can't stuff that many people in that tightly and not get violence. Unfortunately, Comicon has their hands tied. They haven't been clearing rooms between panels, which means that most people will refuse to give up their seats and will have to be arrested and escorted from the convention, which Comicon won't do, thus this is going to keep happening in years to come.

Vegas really is the only place in the country where an event the size and scope of SDCC can be held. No other city is built for a convention that size, but Vegas does them every week. Unfortunately, since Vegas doesn't need SDCC, they're not going to bend over backwards to get them and give them massive discounts and breaks. Still, given the opportunity for unlimited growth, which simply doesn't exist in any other city in the U.S., Vegas is the clear choice, but one that I'm sure the SDCC con committee wouldn't even consider.

add to that the fact that Vegas is spending lots of money advertising themselves as an "Adult" destination again after trying to be more "family friendly" in the 90's.

I don't see something that is inherently "all-ages" happening in a city like Vegas anytime soon.

Don't know why I didn't think of this sooner, but a better solution might be to run the con the way things like Toy Fair and E3 are run.

Have one main exhibition hall and then have each of the "major players" hold panels and "specials" in satellite sites. It would help to spread out the crowds, allow people who are interested in one particular aspect of the con to focus on that without dealing with the overflow of the general populace crowd and could allow for more growth and pedestrian admission.

Granted, a lot of work would need to be done to coordinate such things, like shuttle services that run on time and can handle the traffic (both people and other vehicles), clearly labeled signage and possibly announcements, and that each vendor/exhibitor would need to coordinate themselves internally as well to make sure everyone was where they needed to be at the right time.

Thankfully I wasn't there when it happened but my friends were a few rows away when it happened. In the Fringe signing at WB where I was at dozens of people got textes around the same time of the stabbing from friends that were in Hall H at the time.