Culinary's "Concepts"

IMPORTANT NEWS FOR EVENT PLANNERS!  The San Diego Comic-Con International might not be safe in San Diego forever!  The HUGE convention returns to the San Diego Convention Center every summer, brings a large amount of business to the city, and generates millions of dollars in revenue each year.   In the last three years, the event has overflowed out of the Convention Center, spilling into other venues downtown, such as Petco Park, Horton Plaza, and the Midway.  Tickets (for over 126,000 attendees at the last 2 events) have sold out two months in advance. 

Convention centers in Los Angeles and Las Vegas have been courting Comic-Con organizers, trying to woo them away from SD with promises of larger accomodations for the quickly expanding Comic-Con. The convention is under contract with the SDCC through 2012, but after that, who knows?  SD leaders are fighting to keep San Diego as the front runner for the group, as it means so much economically and culturally (Comic-Con generates $16 million in direct spending and $38 million in indirect spending for the city--meaning attendees spend $16 million on hotels, car rentals and restaurants, and a "ripple effect" of more than twice that).   Our hotel occupancy rate during the convention is the highest for the county during the entire year, at 98%! The Convention Center is working with a task force fromed by the city to research adding 200,000+ square feet to the center.  I think this would be a great move, to keep groups coming to America's Finest City, and helping our economy!