Ben Goretsky booked 140,000 square feet at Anaheim Convention Center for his DesignerCon, a November showcase of art, design and products for toy and collectibles aficionados that had been at Pasadena Convention Center since its inception 13 years ago.
Then he booked the same again, and more.
“We originally took all of Hall C, then expanded into Hall D”—another 220,000 square feet.
DesignerCon maxed out in Pasadena at 97,000 square feet.
“We have a wait list of 3,000 companies to [exhibit].”
It had 500 vendors last year and projects 700 this year.
The show started in 1,100 square feet, drawing “maybe a little under a hundred people.” Last year, 37,000 attendees bid farewell to Pasadena.
Goretsky expects 65,000 in Anaheim this year.
Upper Echelon
By that metric, DesignerCon enters the upper echelon of local shows:
• The National Association of Music Merchants in January attracts 115,000.
• The Natural Products Expo West in March brings more than 85,000.
• Biannual Disney fan show D23 Expo draws about 65,000.
It extended its run from two days to three and blocked off 1,000 rooms spread among Residence Inn, Spring Hill Suites and Clarion Hotel.
Extending events is uncommon without backing from exhibitors and attendees, trade industry sources said.
Goretsky wanted OC when he decided to leave Pasadena.
“It’s a center point between L.A. and San Diego,” he said. “Plus the obvious one here: Everyone loves Disneyland.”
He’s “not a fan” of Los Angeles Convention Center parking and traffic.
“We’re trying to establish ourselves here.”
Funky Vibe
DesignerCon takes a quirky role in Anaheim, and not just because it involves artists. It’s a consumer show—$20 buys a day pass, and $35 gets the weekend.
Its hotel rooms are at convention center perimeter sites. “Hilton and Marriott were taken for something else.”
It’s in older halls, not in the new 200,000-square-foot center expansion at ACC North, which opened in September.
Its 700 exhibitors are dwarfed by NAMM’s 2,000-plus. DesignerCon’s waiting list of 3,000 exhibitors is less than Natural Product’s 3,500 booked exhibitors, and the larger ones are five days instead of three.
Convention centers savor multiyear deals, but Goretsky said he booked next year’s show only last week. “We’re still up in the air for 2020.”
New Development
Visit Anaheim executive Junior Tauvaa said of DesignCon, “They’re at the early stages.”
Hosting 65,000 attendees is “great if it happens, and we’d like to see that,” but it “has to perform on all metrics”—attendance; revenue from hotels, food and beverage, and transportation; and costs to the convention center.
“We need to see what they’re able to deliver before we confirm for the future.”
Even then, it would need to be paired with another event that sells more hotel rooms. “It couldn’t stand alone.”
Layering events has increased with ACC North, and Visit Anaheim has sought, for instance, more medical shows.
One such event is in the new space on the same week as DesignerCon, and another is at the convention center two days before them.
GenreCon
DesignerCon touches the developing niche of focused entertainment media events with ardent fan bases that connect to a wider online culture.
• D23 Expo came about when Disney decided not to pay for a presence at San Diego Comic-Con if it could fill its own hotels back home.
• WonderCon, produced by the same group as Comic-Con, brings 50,000 people to Anaheim in March. It began in the Bay Area for comic book and graphic novel fans.
• VidCon, for online video and social media and Hollywood types trying to tap them, brought 25,000 here last week.
• BlizzCon by Blizzard Entertainment Inc. in Irvine, brings 30,000 gamers and others in November.
DesignerCon mashes up apparel, collectibles and “urban, underground and pop art.” Its focus is designers, creators and artists—think Paul Frank and Kidrobot—that make stuff, including a big contingent from Asia.
“We’re the incubator” for such shows, Tauvaa of Visit Anaheim said. “That’s what this show is trying to capture.”
Not all do.
MineCon for devotees of the “Minecraft” game brought 12,000 people to Anaheim in 2016, but then went online-only as a live-streamed event.
Showtime
Space growth gets Goretsky wider aisles for attendees and more room for vendor booth space—a boon for exhibitors who “come halfway around the world” and want to show more product.
Booths are $600 for a standard 10-by-10-foot space. About a third of vendors take larger spaces up to 70-by-40.
This year, the show bagged Tokyo-based Medicom Toy Co.
“They’ve never done a U.S. show,” Goretsky said.
DesignerCon is increasing virtual reality, augmented reality and new product offerings, building a tech component alongside the core “original designs and artists doing independent interpretations of popular characters.”
Massive media and consumer companies don’t generally exhibit, but they attend.
“They come to the show to see what’s going on in our scene,” he said, and exhibiting artists have produced work for Target, Hallmark, Warner Brothers, and Downtown Disney’s WonderGround Gallery.
“Studios, especially in animation, want to see what artists are coming up with.”
Fan Base
Third-year exhibitor Daniel Adoff is a Laguna College of Art and Design grad, founder of collectibles maker Art School Collective, and co-owner with Jason Bettinger of graphic design firm 2Thrive Media LLC, both in Irvine.
Art School Collective’s monthly “Drink and Draw,” an artists-and-fans meet-up where coaster doodling gets a beer discount, is the same weekend as DesignCon and at Unsung Brewery Co. across from Anaheim Packing House.
“DesignerCon is the best show for actual artists,” he said. “There’s a humungous collection of … original art.”
Collectors come “to spend thousands of dollars,” including at a VIP advance-look entry on the added day.
“They come ready (to buy), afraid [items] will sell out.”
About 80% of attendees are buyers, and 20% are “artists looking for what’s out there,” Goretsky said.
He founded and runs the show under his collectible figures maker 3D Retro in Glendale.
“I was looking for shows for 3D Retro,” he said. “Most had (only) a little section for us.”
