SDCC 2012: The Geekscape Post Mortem / State of the Union!

When I first started Geekscape in December of 2006, one of the first decisions I made was to apply for a San Diego Comic-Con booth. At the time, all applications sat at the end of a potential 4 year wait-list, but I knew that Geekscape was something that I wanted to create that would stand the test of time and that I could afford to be patient as it grew. In the Summer of 2010, Geekscape had its first booth on the SDCC floor. At the time, the wait-list was rumored to be 7 years and today, as Geekscape looks back on its 3rd year on the SDCC floor, the wait supposedly sits at 10. I haven’t always made the best decisions with this brand, but applying for real estate on the floor of the fan biggest convention in North America has easily been one of them.

And this year was our best year yet, both in terms of exposure, excitement and even sales. In fact, I was happy to discover that by 10am on Thursday, the morning of the first full day, we had sold more Geekscape t-shirts than during all four full days of last year’s SDCC. All weekend, while Scott Almaniana, Shawn Madden and the Geekscape press corps ran around bringing you fantastic Con coverage, Shane O’Hare and I weathered the constant barrage of visitors, fans and signings at the Geekscape booth. This summer, more than those past, the evidence was undeniable:  Geekscape is bigger and better than it ever has been. And I feel as though we’re just now really getting started. Thank the Old Gods that I’m patient, right?

The reasons for this surge in popularity are several, some planned, some not. First off, our site is finally something that can fully engage and keep an audience. With Shawn Madden and company keeping a steady stream of content on the site since our March relaunch, our numbers have steadily grown. At the time, we were the Top 260,000th site on web, with an average 30k pageview/month count. It was quite the sad state of affairs. In less than 6 months, we’re now on the verge of cracking into the Top 100,000 sites on the web with an average pageview/month of over 200k. We still have a ways to go, but there’s no denying that our mantra of consistency and quality is starting to show results. Add to this the brand new ScapePods, both regular and hopefully quality, and we’re really cooking with gas. In fact, I’ll soon be announcing some more audio podcasts to add to our slate of shows as I move my focus from the written content, now in solid hands, to the podcasts. They were our very start and I think that we can do more to get them out there to the audience that they all deserve… even The Saint Mort Show. Look for tweaks on the site in the coming months to help up the quality in what we do around here.

The FP‘s JTro and X-Men: First Class‘s Lucas Till drop by to say “what’s up” to Geekscape!

Another thing that’s helped us get our name out is our increase in friends. Geekscape was built as a resource for all like-minded geek creatives, and having folks like Doug Jones, Marc Zicree, Charlie Adard, Brea & Zane Grant and many others start to use it as a way to get the word out and share in our excitement is really rewarding. Their fans become excited about Geekscape. Geekscape fans become excited about their projects. And everyone wins. On Thursday, as my voice first started to fail (and I still had both our Comikaze/Stan Lee party and the Comics on Comics panel to go), Geekscape friends Jason Trost from The FP and Lucas Till from X-Men: First Class dropped by to talk to me about their upcoming project “Wet and Reckless“. I don’t have much news for you yet, but you know that as soon as I can share, you’ll see it shared on Geekscape! Across the board, creators like Mega 64, Jon Schnepp, Iain McCaig and more were excited for the first time to see what Geekscape had in the works (and there’s a lot).

On Friday, voice recovered as much as possible, The People VS George Lucas director Alexandre Philippe dropped by to deliver me a rare Japanese version of the film’s blu-ray (there is no US blu-ray).

In addition, we did an interview for our new Geekscape co-produced film Doc of the Dead with Fanboy Comix and held a fundraising poster signing with The Walking Dead artist Charlie Adlard (in an hour we raised $1,000).

I was also finally able to begin recording some GeekscapePods to send to you fine folks. My intent was always to record more throughout the weekend, but the fact is that between keeping the booth running, helping the autograph signings and maintaining everything else, I definitely overestimated my ability to record. I did get Charlie Adlard, FX legend Iaian McCaig, MMA fighter Nate Quarry (who dropped by and surprised me as I was closing up shop Friday night) and Sean Becker and Teal Sherer to record some things for you. In the end though, not recording more content for you guys is something that I regret and next year I hope to have both Shane O’Hare and Matt Kelly there to give me a chance to get you some more pods! I would also like to record some more pieces from Geekscapists walking the floor and sharing their experiences. So I’ll plan accordingly and here’s to next year (because we did already pay for next year so start making plans to be there)!

“More podcasts next year!”

The final positive of this year are all of the new friends that we made. I had a tough time leaving the booth and only managed to do so for about 10 minutes a day to walk the floor (although I did manage lunch on two days which I thank Shane O’Hare so much for allowing me to do)! In that time, I went and bought a Zomb for Laura and got to see Geekscape friends like Kevin Eastman and Daniel Corey at their respective booths. I also had a slew of new friends come to the booth like our booth neighbor Maddox, pro-wrestler John Morrison (who will be on an episode of Geekscape very soon) and convention wild-man Keith Apicary (who did not get kicked out!).

So that was our year at San Diego Comic Con from my perspective and some hints of what’s to come. Super Action Man made an appearance on the final day to scare some visitors (into loving him) and scripts for the next Geekscape project after Doc of the Dead went to a few folks in the know in order to get the ball rolling for next year. It’s an incredibly exciting time for Geekscape and things are only going to get better. San Diego Comic Con is always a benchmark for how far we’ve come over the years and a few days removed from this year’s experience, I find myself both amazed and grateful for how far we have come together in the years since I ordered booth space back in December 2006. Thank you all so much for being a part of it and just you wait to see what’s next!