"Has the con saturation point been reached? " Topic

"As people will know by now, the Hascon convention, which should have had it's first edition next sunday, has been cancelled.

Now, this is actually the second one this year that has been called off, after Antwerp Convention beginning of july, so has the saturation point been reached in little Belgium?

Now, there are a whole lot of theories about the why and how that these have happened, but as I`m not an organiser, it's not my place to tell about them, nor voice an opinion…"
From here
link

Amicalement
Armand

No, there are three levels of conventions. National, regional and local. Ver the past 15 years many of the local conventions have shifted to quarterly or monthly game days with no vendors. There are still a number of local shows but many last only four years or less.
The regional shows are the most stable and attract a number of vendors and gamers.
The national shows in the USA have been stable in number for decades. The cost of putting them on have limited the ability to start and run them. The area of growth is the convention area over the past decade has been in the media/ multi genre shows with media guests and Cosplayers.

I would second Rudy's comments and add that sometimes the origin, growth, maintenance and ultimate decline of a local convention will often depend upon one or two or several charismatic individuals.

Sadly, once they lose interest their show's days are numbered.

It's interesting that this conversation is coming from a link about Lego conventions…

In time, all things will become Lego related, the way all things quickly show themselves interrelated with Kevin Bacon.

The engineer who planned the brilliantly elegant Falkirk Wheel rotating boat lift used Legos to demonstrate the mechanical principle to the projects backers.

I think it depends on what kind of conventions you're talking about. Back in April I was at Tekko in a panel Are Anime Conventions Doomed. The guy did a lot of research and showed stats for the USA how many anime conventions there are, and which states have more, and which states have none. How many conventions are created every year and how many fail. He gave a pretty sound argument that at least in the USA anime conventions have reached a saturation point.

I'm sure if some one did the research they could figure out any other type of convention. But it seems to me gaming conventions are still a rare breed, and not as wide spread.

I would suggest two ways of thinking about it. You hit "saturation point" when (a) you've used up all the available time, or (b) you've used up all the available money. My impression from the US was that Britain was fairly near (a) The bulk of the wargamers had a convention within day trip range each weekend and often had a choice. Can't speak for the continent.
The US can't reach that point due to the thinner population and the lower percentage of wargamers. In much of the country there are not enough miniatures players--certainly not enough historical miniatures players--in day trip range to sustain a convention.
I think we might be pretty near (b) though, at least east of the Mississippi and probably west of the Rockies. I have six multi-day historical miniatures conventions available within one day's travel each year, and four of them are 500-3,000 attendees and a decent range of vendors. Between transport, lodging, eating out and the vendors, that's about two more than I can afford to attend, and I think many of us are making similar calculations.
If we don't grow the hobby and the pool of attendees, one convention can only grow at the expense of another.

I'm lucky if I can get to 3 or 4 of 'em a year. CincyCon,Origins,GenCon and ATC.

Only when it's raining at the Host.

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Tabletop wargaming cons specifically? Probably not.

General "nerd" cons with everything from anime to miniatures to RPGs? There's a trillion of them, but they seem to each serve slightly different niche audiences in the area, so I'm guessing they do fine.

RPGers seem to do better here in the US though.