ReedPOP, which organizes the New York Comic Con, has acquired Emerald City Comicon, a fast growing pop culture convention based in Seattle, Washington.
Lance Fensterman, ReedPOP’s global senior v-p, said the deal includes the six person staff of Emerald City Comicon and will take effect at this year’s show scheduled for March 27-29. The deal marks the continuing growth of the comics and pop culture convention business, which features the exponential growth of both mammoth pop culture shows like New York Comic Con and smaller, more comics focused local shows like the MoCCA Arts Festival here in New York.
Emerald City Comicon illustrates the trend perfectly. Originally launched in 2003 by Jim Demonakos, a local comics retailer, Emerald City Comicon debuted with about 2,500 fans attending that year. In 2014 the show drew 70,000 fans and more than 80,000 fans are expected to attend the 2015 show.
Demonakos said, "We are huge fans of what ReedPOP is doing across the globe in this pop culture space that ECCC also occupies.”
The growth of ReedPop, the Reed Exhibitions division that manages a fast growing collection of pop culture consumer conventions around the world, illustrates how the convention business has changed. The founding of New York Comic Con in 2006, put Reed Exhibitions, which formerly focused on trade shows, in the consumer show business. In addition to New York Comic Con, which attracted over 150,000 fans in 2014, ReedPop manages 15 big pop culture events around the world, including C2E2 in Chicago, The Star Wars Celebration, PAX (the Penny Arcade gaming show), pop culture conventions in Australia, Comic Con India, the Paris Comic Con and others.
Fensterman said, "The addition of ECCC to the ReedPOP family is a huge win.” He added that I know there are things we can introduce to the mix and look even more forward to what the ECCC team can bring to all our events around the globe.”
