Op-Ed: Are The Stay@Home Virtual Cons Better Than The Real Thing?

 

 

Earlier this week ReedPop, producer of conventions like NYCC, C2E2, and a dozen other events across the country, announced a new online convention set to launch this week called Metaverse and that this year’s New York Comic-Con will also be an online-only event. Last month we had all sorts on online events. Between Comic-Con @ Home, Funimation Con, Adult Swim Con, there was a lot going on at any given time and the best part about all of them? THEY WERE FREE!

I would argue that the online streaming conventions could not only be the future, but that they could be even better than the physical conventions of years’ past. It sounds crazy, but it’s true. I’m here to make a case, feel free to comment:

1)Online conventions are free which…in case you’re counting at home…means it costs $0 and no cents to go to any of these cons.

2) I found the panels more star-studded coming in online than they are typically in person. Family Guy is a good example in that for the first time in what felt like forever, the entire principle cast was featured as part of a panel detailing the upcoming season. I can’t even recall the last time Mila Kunis did a Comic-Con appearance, and Alex Borstein is getting more and more scant as her number of Emmys stock pile. Had these panels be physical, I don’t even think Seth MacFarlane would have shown up, at best, doing one of those satellite appearances.

3) No travel. No dealing with airports, hotels, restaurants, I didn’t miss any of those things. Typically hotels and restaurants are even more overpriced on Comic-Con weekend so to be able to avoid all of that and just watch panels in the comfort of my own home made things that much more palatable.

4) No cosplayers. I might get some heat for this, but I certainly don’t miss unprofessional cosplayers and their sweaty filthy costumes clogging up the hallways of a hot convention hall or looking homeless while sleeping outside waiting for Hall H panels to maybe open up. I also won’t miss my phone dying constantly due to lack of available outlets in which to plug-in phone chargers. And whatever outlets are available, are typically covered up by somebody’s Venom-painted up football pads that wreaks of hot dogs and shame.

The biggest reason why digital cons might be the future, is that there is no payment required by the studios to do them. They could book entire weeks of panels with everyone doing them via Zoom, and the costs would be minimal compared to the cost of flying producers privately, putting them up in hotels, and shuttling them back and forth from the conventions. Moreover, the star power can sometimes be very lacking at physical conventions, especially for panels that aren’t in Hall H/Empire stage which means everyone is putting in a whole bunch of work for nothing. Oh, and cons are increasingly expensive, and have ridiculous requirements in which to obtain tickets. For NYCC, you’re constantly patted down and scanned before you move between buildings that host panels making the entire event that much more of an annoyance. Who needs any of that?

LONG LIVE DIGITAL CONS!