Will Comic-Con stay in San Diego?

Comic-Con will be in San Diego through 2016, but beyond that, organizers have yet to commit.

With an expanded convention center now a derailed dream, San Diegos hospitality industry is stepping up its efforts to entice its most beloved convention, Comic-Con, to stay in town through 2018.

Well aware that rival cities like Anaheim and Los Angeles still have a keen interest in luring a convention of Comic-Cons size and worldwide stature away from San Diego, Mayor Kevin Faulconer is appealing to local hoteliers to hold the line on future room rates during the July meeting when demand for lodging is the highest all year and rooms the costliest.

He plans to attend Comic-Con Internationals board meeting on Sunday to make a personal pitch to organizers and remind them how much San Diego values their annual meeting, which draws more than 130,000 attendees, fills hotel rooms countywide, and commands international media coverage.

Comic-Con International currently has formal commitments to stay in San Diego through 2016, but future years remain up in the air.

While no decision on a future Comic-Con contract will be made at the groups board meeting, the citys Tourism Authority, which is responsible for securing long-term bookings at the convention center, is hoping to finalize an agreement by the first of the year.

Toward that end, the tourism agency is currently seeking agreements from hotels in the Comic-Con convention room block to not raise their rates above 2016 levels for the years 2017 and 2018. It is not the kind of request that would be made for any other convention, no matter how lucrative, Tourism Authority CEO Joe Terzi said. During this years convention, discounted room rates ranged from a low of $161 a night to $380.

Of the more than 50 hotels in the 2014 Comic-Con convention room block, close to 30 have already signed agreements stipulating that for 2017 and 2018 they will not deviate from what they pledged for 2016, Terzi said. In addition, major waterfront convention hotels are committing to some free meeting space for Comic-Con events, and the center itself will adhere to a much discounted rent, which this year totaled nearly $200,000.

Comic-Con has expressed concern over the last several years that its getting very expensive for their attendees to come to San Diego and while they recognize that theyre here at a premium time of year, they feel theyre being taken advantage of to a degree, Terzi said. I believe that Comic-Con is ours to keep but we cant get too cocky and create an environment that doesnt work for their customers.

The latest effort to cement a deal with Comic-Con feels a little like deja vu. Four years ago, former Mayor Jerry Sanders, as Faulconer is doing now, pressured the citys hoteliers to offer more competitive room rates as part of an ultimately successful bid to win Comic-Cons business through 2015. At the time, Los Angeles and Anaheim were also heavily courting Comic-Con.

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Will Comic-Con stay in San Diego?