WonderCon Remains In Anaheim For 2013

CBR

By Kiel Phegley

Published Nov 12, 2012

After a brief period of uncertainty surrounding San Francisco's Moscone Center, the organizers of WonderCon have announced that they'll stick to the Disneyland-adjacent Anaheim Convention Center for a 2013 show from March 29 to 31.

WonderCon 2013 will officially be held March 29-31, 2013 in Anaheim.

After over a year of questions for both convention organizers and, more often than not, San Francisco's Moscone Center, it should come as no surprise today that WonderCon officially declared that its 2013 engagement will remain in Anaheim rather than return to its traditional Bay Area home. The show run by the non-profit behind Comic-Con International posted the following message on the matter this morning:

As many of you are aware, it has been our hope to return to San Francisco for WonderCon 2013.

We have been waiting for information on the availability of the Moscone Center and were just officially offered dates, though they were for the fall.

However, those dates coincide with another very large city wide event, and this has resulted in some unavoidable conflicts. Among them hotel room blocks we explored near, and not so near, the Moscone Center started at $300 per night.

This, along with the expected difficulty of exhibitors and attendees in securing airfare for those outside of driving distance of San Francisco for that weekend, has resulted in us not being able to secure San Francisco as a location for WonderCon in 2013.

However, because we knew there was a possibility of not being able to return to San Francisco, we have scheduled WonderCon: Anaheim to be held March 29-31, 2013. Hopefully we will be able to return WonderCon to San Francisco sometime soon.

Questions around the show's future began almost immediately after WonderCon was forced to move to Anaheim for 2012 for what was widely seen as a successful show just around the corner from Disneyland. At the time, Comic-Con's Director of Marketing and Public Relations David Glanzer told CBR, "The plan was always to return to San Francisco. WonderCon was born in the Bay Area and we'd like to keep it there. I will say, however, that we haven't received 2013 dates yet. Hopefully our Anaheim version will be such a success that San Francisco will be a bit more embracing of us" and he recently reiterated that stance even as Comic-Con set plans in place for the Easter Anaheim show. Then, the plans had been to move WonderCon to the fall in San Fran if possible AND let the March show stand as its own brand, however the possibility that Comic-Con will expand to four annual shows now seems less likely.

Stay tuned to CBR News for more on the story as it develops.