What Outdoor Retailer and International Comic-Con Have in Common
Outdoor Retailer just announced it is committing to Salt Lake City through 2018. Last month, International Comic-Con made the same commitment to San Diego: to stay through 2018.
So, why does it feel like Comic-Con is on its way out of San Diego in three short years and Outdoor Retailer is in Salt Lake to stay?
The different reasons point to something the two events have in common: A passionate community that surrounds the event and organizers with a keen sense of what that community wants.
For more than a decade, what is now Emerald Expositions has dithered about whether to move Outdoor Retailer somewhere where it could grow larger, faster. Nevertheless, several years ago it began massive polling and listening projects to find out what its attendees and exhibitors really wanted out of a location.
The truth is they like Salt Lake City, they like being able to quickly get out to the nearby mountains to try out the equipment they see back at the jam-packed convention center, and the small city in Utah feels like the kind of place they might move to someday.
A sense of place matters to them, and Emerald has responded to that.
On the other hand, Comic-Con has turned into a popular culture phenomenon that really has grown far beyond the physical limitations of the San Diego Convention Center. During the live event, millions of impressions fly out over social media channels and traditional media sources are full of news of what's going on there. A pop culture fan in the most remote corner of the world can participate almost as fully as anyone in San Diego can.
A sense of place matters less to its community than does Outdoor Retailer's. What matters to Comic-Con's community is that it makes them feel like they belong to a very special tribe, whose venue is the world.
In three years, Comic-Con can move to Los Angeles or Anaheim or Timbuctoo and nobody will notice the difference.
That's because, just like Outdoor Retailer, the nonprofit that runs Comic-Con has learned what its audience wants, and how to deliver it.
Michael Hart is a business consultant and writer who focuses on the events industry. He can be reached at michaelhrt3@gmail.com.