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NEWS: Comic Market 86 Draws 550,000 Across 3 Days




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walw6pK4Alo



Joined: 12 Mar 2008
Posts: 9322
PostPosted: Mon Aug 18, 2014 12:42 am Reply with quote
They need a new convention site that's bigger, enclosed, and air conditioned. Big Sight might be located in Tokyo, but it's old, small, and it's drawbacks are only going to be exacerbated once they kick Summer Comiket out in 2020 to do god knows what for the Olympics.

Anywho, I hope everyone gets home safely with their hauls spoiler[to their scanners.]
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Hoppy800



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PostPosted: Mon Aug 18, 2014 12:58 am Reply with quote
550,000 is some good attendance numbers, hopefully everyone had a heck of a time and spoiler[I await the raw of the last of my most wanted doujin of C86 to come out].

As for 2020, if Comiket goes away shame on the Japanese government for doing so, have a heart and at least make them relocate in a timely manner. I want a nice ending to the mess please.
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samuelp
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Joined: 25 Nov 2007
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 18, 2014 4:14 am Reply with quote
walw6pK4Alo wrote:
They need a new convention site that's bigger, enclosed, and air conditioned. Big Sight might be located in Tokyo, but it's old, small, and it's drawbacks are only going to be exacerbated once they kick Summer Comiket out in 2020 to do god knows what for the Olympics.

Anywho, I hope everyone gets home safely with their hauls spoiler[to their scanners.]


The only convention space larger than Big Sight in Japan is Makuhari Messe out in Chiba (where the Tokyo Game Show and Niconico choukaigi are, etc). But that has serious transportation issues in my opinion, as it's only served by a single relatively infrequent JR line + buses from other semi-close stations. And it's only barely larger, I believe.
Moving Comiket to a different venue would take planning of epic proportions, and execution of even more epic proportions.
And almost certainly result in chaos for at least a couple years before people get used to it.

If I were the committee I'd consider cancelling for a year in 2020 rather than attempt moving somewhere else for just 1 year. Or perhaps do something more interesting like split comiket up into 3-4 separate, smaller events that could be held in smaller venues at different times.
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walw6pK4Alo



Joined: 12 Mar 2008
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 18, 2014 4:54 am Reply with quote
I had no idea Japan was that lacking for convention space. Of course we view their cities as cramped and tiny with any available space going for a premium, but even with all the rugged mountainous terrain, there's still a bunch of good wide open land evidenced by tons of western-styled shopping malls going up. Though I guess if you're not in Tokyo or Osaka, you may as well not exist.
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samuelp
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 18, 2014 5:56 am Reply with quote
walw6pK4Alo wrote:
I had no idea Japan was that lacking for convention space. Of course we view their cities as cramped and tiny with any available space going for a premium, but even with all the rugged mountainous terrain, there's still a bunch of good wide open land evidenced by tons of western-styled shopping malls going up. Though I guess if you're not in Tokyo or Osaka, you may as well not exist.

You can't just build a huge convention center in the middle of nowhere unless you surround it with hotels and other fake city like stuff.

Around narita airport would be logical but you'd be surprised how difficult it is in Japan to even buy up and develop farmland.
There is a reason why both makuhari messe and big site are located on "reclaimed land", ie artificial islands in the bay.
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revolutionotaku



Joined: 19 May 2011
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 18, 2014 9:24 am Reply with quote
The line to get into Comiket must've been a nightmare.
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Kadmos1



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PostPosted: Mon Aug 18, 2014 9:32 am Reply with quote
Sheesh, this makes the various Comic Con conventions seem like an indy con. Wonder how well it does for manga-ka who are there that sell doujin of their own titles.
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HeeroTX



Joined: 15 Jul 2002
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 18, 2014 4:02 pm Reply with quote
walw6pK4Alo wrote:
I had no idea Japan was that lacking for convention space. Of course we view their cities as cramped and tiny with any available space going for a premium, but even with all the rugged mountainous terrain, there's still a bunch of good wide open land evidenced by tons of western-styled shopping malls going up. Though I guess if you're not in Tokyo or Osaka, you may as well not exist.

To be fair, how many events need THAT level of space? Comiket is really big, realistically speaking the "best" thing would be to spread it out over multiple buildings, but I don't know if they have a complex of event space like that. But really, how often do you have events that need a GINORMOUS amount of space?

For comparison, The exhibit space of Tokyo Big Sight's East Hall is basically the same size as the entire exhibit floor space for SDCC and there's still the entire West Hall and various other floor space, not to mention the fact that cosplay activities are usually outside Big Sight and often have related events a short ways away. Are there any OTHER events in Tokyo that would need (or even "appreciate") maybe 30% more space to an events center? Because I can't see Tokyo building a ginormous event space SOLELY for Comiket which is only twice a year. (and yes, based on the station during the event, any new place would also need MASSIVE infrastructure in place to handle the transportation load. Comiket absolutely JAMS the nearby train station as well as loading up the monorail and (presumably, altho I can't say from experience) any nearby bus service, all of which is pretty solid since it's in/near Odaiba which is a tourist/holiday spot.

Edit: Also, just to help put things in perspective, the last few times I've gone, Comiket has been quite literally JAM-packed-wall-to-wall bodies AND (with that in mind) when Madoka Magica had just been out and Aniplex had cool promos for it, the line (which was ONLY for the Aniplex booth) did a full circle around a parking lot that was bigger than a football field. And that ENTIRE LINE was OUTSIDE the buildings. Granted, it was (near as I could tell) the longest line, but it was NOT the "only" line outside the facility, not even close since all the really popular circles have lines OUTSIDE the floor space.
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 18, 2014 5:54 pm Reply with quote
samuelp wrote:

Around narita airport would be logical but you'd be surprised how difficult it is in Japan to even buy up and develop farmland.


I hear there's still controversy around airport expansion. Eminent domain isn't strong with the surrounding farmlands.


revolutionotaku wrote:

The line to get into Comiket must've been a nightmare.


Crowd control Japan-style: Extraordinary video shows how HALF A MILLION people are kept in order at comic convention

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ermNqkUUiJw





Kadmos1 wrote:

Wonder how well it does for manga-ka who are there that sell doujin of their own titles.


Doujinshi are typically small print runs, so once they're out, they're done working.
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Stuart Smith



Joined: 13 Jan 2013
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 18, 2014 6:15 pm Reply with quote
Kadmos1 wrote:
Sheesh, this makes the various Comic Con conventions seem like an indy con. Wonder how well it does for manga-ka who are there that sell doujin of their own titles.


There's more money to be had in parody works than original I would imagine. If it's an original story your best bet is to sell doujinshi until a company picks you up.

As far as numbers go it depends on an artist's skill, what media they're doing, and other factors. You have circles who don't sell very much and lose money, and circles who've reported a gross of over 25,000,000 yen (250,000 USD) per Comiket, and everything in between.

-Stuart Smith
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walw6pK4Alo



Joined: 12 Mar 2008
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 18, 2014 7:21 pm Reply with quote
enurtsol wrote:
Kadmos1 wrote:
Wonder how well it does for manga-ka who are there that sell doujin of their own titles.


Doujinshi are typically small print runs, so once they're out, they're done working.


Until they make another doujinshi. The point is to make a name for yourself, grow a fanbase, print and sell more copies, and to attend more events than just the Summer or Winter Comikets. The more copies you print, the more profit you make from bulk distribution. This is of course if your goal is money over just having fun, which I'm sure plenty of artists aim for instead.

I don't think many mangaka do ero-doujinshi of their own works unless they're Jouji Manabe, but you have plenty of famous names doing doujinshi for other stuff. Kouta Hirano (Hellsing) has done a nice line of Touhou books, and of course Shoji Sato (HotD) has done of ton of stuff including PreCure. For non-h stuff, I guess doujinshi are more common.

Also, the ride isn't exactly over once circles sell out the physical copies. They can always order another print run or they can have stuff go up digitally. Or in the case of some artists and their works, they can sell compilations volumes that go for 1800-2100 yen.
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Fedora-san



Joined: 12 Aug 2014
Posts: 464
PostPosted: Mon Aug 18, 2014 8:37 pm Reply with quote
Takotsuboya sold 31,814 copies of his Oreimo doujinshi back during C79. Made about 26 million yen over the 3 day weekend, well over 300K American back during those days. That's pretty good. Of course he's been making doujinshi for about 15 years now so newcomers aren't going to pull in that kind of money right off the bat, but it pays if you know what you're doing.
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