Reed Exhibitions‘ Lance Fensterman—who is building himself a pop culture convention empire as the Vice President of the company’s Pop Culture Group—has announced that, in 2010, the New York Comic Con (NYCC) and the New York Anime Festival (NYAF) will be “co-located”. For the rest of us, it seems to mean the two major pop culture events will be combined.
Earlier this year, Fensterman announced that the next NYCC will be held 8-10 October 2010 (the last was in February 2009), in an effort to balance the calendar with the newly launched Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2) and the long-running July San Diego Comic Con (which is not a Reed production).
Fensterman says “Our decision to co-locate NYAF with NYCC is the final installment of a strategic plan to place and sequence our pop culture events in a manner that best serves the needs of our fans and exhibitors. We are launching [C2E2] in April 2010, and we have moved NYCC to a permanent October date, thus providing a spring and fall balance to these two key events which will remain in place as we move forward. Rather than create a third date for NYAF, it was decided a co-location would be better for anime fans, professionals, exhibitors, and partners. We spoke to attendees and exhibitors of both shows before making this decision, and everyone agrees that this will provide an opportunity for both shows to further grow and prosper.”
The “co-located” shows will take up nearly the entire Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. Both shows will “maintain distinct guests and programming space and share a common show floor.” But only one admission will be required for the whole shebang. “Co-locating NYCC and NYAF provides value, pure and simple,” Fensterman said. “We want to reach as many people as possible and this is clearly the best way to serve our audience and grow our events at the same time.”
The next NYAF (the last independent one) will be later this month, 25-27 September.
In addition to the New York shows, Fensterman is also in charge of Book Expo America (the annual industry trade show at which book publishers display their wares for booksellers) and C2E2, the newly announced Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo, which will debut 16-18 April 2010.
Related articles previously published on SFScope:
NYAF and Del Rey Manga open this year’s festival a day early with a party (1 September 2009)
New York Comic Con spreading to other parts of the city (12 August 2009)
Reed Exhibitions to launch Chicago Comic Con, and fix NY Comix Con dates (2 February 2009)