Is Attending SDCC a Status Symbol?
The question begs to be asked and people may not like the answer.
The last time I bought a badge for San Diego Comic-Con was in 2008. That year, you could still go to the convention center and purchase a ticket that day. A four day badge with preview night was around $80 and you could buy your four day badge for the following year for under $100. There was still parking spots available at the convention center the day of if you arrived early enough.
About three or four years ago, I attempted to attain an SDCC badge online. It was one of the first years that they were selling their badges online only and it seemed like everyone was trying to get a badge and their servers kept crashing because of the amount of traffic. It began at 9am on a Saturday morning on a February 5th. Four hours went by while I was on my computer attempting to attain a four day badge. They sold out. I did not get one. It was my birthday.
In my own personal opinion, I have come to a conclusion that there are two major reasons that people attend SDCC: 1) To attend major panels that require you camp out all night, usually in front of Hall H; 2) To purchase one or many of the exclusive products that will be sold that weekend. Usually people end up doing both anyway.
Whether you go for one of these or both, you have to spend a lot of money for a badge, a room (unless you have friends and family around San Diego), on food and on the items you buy (totalling up to hundreds of dollars if you go for more than one day). This means you are probably pulling in a six figure income annually or you save up every penny just to fully enjoy yourself for four and a half days out of the year. On top of that, many people like to talk it up, let us say, even brag about going to or having gone to Comic-Con, how fun it was, how many celebrities they saw and how much they were able to re-sell the exclusive merchandise on eBay for. To me, this seems like Comic-Con is a Status Symbol no different from a Trophy Wife.
Now to the main point. Comic-Con 2015 came and went like it does every year and luckily this year nobody got seriously injured or killed like a few past years when such terrible incidents occurred. However, there were two interesting articles that came only days after Comic-Con that I feel support my opinion that it is a Status Symbol.
The first article came from LA Weekly and mentioned how artist Ben Templesmith (artist of the series 30 Days of Night) stopped attending Comic-Con two years ago. According to him, the prices for an artist table had become too expensive and he felt he was not making his money back while in attendance. Interestingly enough though, he was in San Diego the weekend of Comic-Con at a bar in one of the hotels near the convention center where he scheduled art commissions with fans via Twitter. By doing this, Templesmith did not have to buy a badge for SDCC or pay for an artist table and was able to directly engage dedicated fans that knew where he was. His venture definitely paid off for him.
The second article, possibly the more surprising one, was one published on the blog Idle Hands. The writer talks about something he and his fellow bloggers and photographers noticed about some cosplayers while in attendance at SDCC; some cosplayers were asking for money.
Cosplayers are amazing people. Many are able to create detailed and intricate costumes that look exactly like a comic/anime/video game/movie character’s outfit. The people put so much time and effort into costumes that sometimes end up costing them anywhere from a few dollars to a couple hundred dollars to make due to the cost of materials. It is an amazing hobby and craft, but it is by no means a reason for cosplayers to ask for monetary donations or charge for photos while at a convention. If a cosplayer feels that they need to subsidize their costume costs by charging money for a photo, they should re-think how they are spending their own personal finances.
What do you think?
Sources: -LA Weekly: One Artist Got Fed Up With Comic-Con, So He Created His Own Convention in a Bar
-Idle Hands: SDCC 2015: Cosplayers Charging For Photos Now