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San Diego Comic Con Gets Half A Million Dollars "For Buses"

Some would call it good business. Others a sweetener. Others a bribe.

Either way, San Diego has made a bold move to ensure Comic Con International: San Diego, the largest English-speaking comic convention in world, sticks around in America's Finest City with a donation of $500,000 from hotel tax revenue to help towards the cost of shuttling people from hotels across the city to the show.

This year there has been extreme pressure on hotel room allocation, partly as a result of an expanding convention, but also by Al Gore and his health conference block booking the Manchester Grand Hyatt, the traditional comic book pro hotel of choice.

The money comes from a hotelier coalition who surcharge the cost of rooms to raise money to promote tourism to the city. And thus book hotel rooms.

As a result, $100,000 a year has been set aside for five years to make the convention experience more pleasurable for attendees who find themselves allocated a few miles away from the action.

Of course, that's assuming that the convention stays in San Diego for five more years. If it doesn't that money will just go away. Poof!

Yeah, it's a bribe. We'll see if it's worked in three weeks time when the decision on the future of the San Diego Comic Con is made.

Although the San Diego Union-Tribune report Bill Evans, executive vice president of Evans Hotels, as saying "I think $100,000 per year is a good buy. At twice the price, it would be a good buy."

Comic Con? Ask them to double it.

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