ReedPOP Announces New Comic Convention In New York

If you've attended a few New York Comic-Con's, you've seen the show experience significant growth, in both attendance and attention, in a small period of time. With that growth has come the seeming inevitability of the show floor going from mostly comics based to featuring a wide variety of booths and panels, some barely related to comics and others not at all.

ReedPOP has noticed the trend to, and they're doing something to counter it. The organizers of New York Comic-Con and C2E2, ReedPOP has revealed plans for Special Edition NYC a new convention that will take place in June in New York and be a "pure comics-focused show."

The news was confirmed earlier today by CBR. ReedPOP global vice president Lance Fensterman said the show will focus on "creators, artists, dealers and some publishers." "We're trying to keep it really pure to comics, with a little bit of kind of an indie bent to it," says Fensterman. "Just something for that pure comics fan." The show will be two days long, with ReedPOP estimating attendance to be between 10,000 and 15,000 each day. For comparison, attendance at last year's New York Comic Con exceeded 130,000 over four days.

The decision to launch Special Edition was inspired by the success and popularity of New York Comic-Con's new and improved Artist Alley in the past two years. Now held in its own newly renovated space in Javits Center North, we noted when it debuted in 2012 that the new Artist Alley was one of the highlights of NYCC. Special Edition will be held at the Javits Center as well, in the same area.

"We started as a pure comics event," says Fensterman. "That's what New York Comic Con was, and it's grown and grown. We felt having something that was still consistently focused on and serving that core comic fan and community was true to our vision when we started this whole game."

Special Edition NYC will take place at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York June 14-15.