Despite rumors that Comic-Con might relocate from San Diego, it seems the year’s biggest pop culture event is staying put for the time being!
Next week, fans and creators collide for four days of nerding out, standing in line, cheering themselves hoarse, and celebrating all the best that genre fiction has to offer.
San Diego Comic-Con was set up in the 1970s, and although several other high-profile cons have been established all over the country, SDCC remains the biggest and most coveted.
So when rumors began circling that Comic-Con might be looking for a new home when its San Diego contract expired this year, fans were understandably concerned.
Related: Zachary Levi discusses Nerd HQ at San Diego Comic-Con
With the growing popularity of Comic-Con, not only are the organizers struggling to fit the tens of thousands of attendees into the limited spaces available in San Diego, but there’s a general desire to make the event more accessible to the masses — perhaps by moving the con to Los Angeles, Anaheim, or Las Vegas.
But according to Deadline, Comic-Con is staying put, at least through 2018.
San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer announced Thursday that the contract has been extended by two years.
Related: You can literally buy George R.R. Martin at San Diego Comic-Con
As Faulconer explained at the press conference, it is very much in San Diego’s interest to keep Comic-Con a local affair, despite growing pressure to expand its locales.
“If you still don’t understand how much Comic-Con means to San Diego,” Faulconer said, “more Superman means more super-streets, more light sabers means more library hours, and more Comic-Con means more neighborhood services for San Diegans.”
In other words, not only does Comic-Con draw in significant revenue for the city’s businesses, but locals are also seeing the benefits, because more is done to keep San Diego primed and maintained for the annual influx of fangirls and -boys.
Related: Comic-Con 2015 bans selfie sticks, drones and more
One deal struck to keep Comic-Con in San Diego should make future con-goers happy: Hotels are no longer allowed to send their rates sky-rocketing around the convention dates.
By 2018, perhaps San Diego will have adequately expanded its convention locales to accommodate for the growing popularity of the con… or maybe we’ll have to get used to writing “Los Angeles Comic-Con” in our reports.