2013 Calgary Comic Expo Thread ! 3 days of Nerdom!

[TurnedTheCorner]

Originally Posted by flameswin

For as far as Calgary has come, our entire list of venues is discraceful.

Our biggest problem is concerts, as a band has to attract a very specific sized crowd to have a suitable venue in town.

1000 - 2000 fans? Great, you can play Mac Hall.

2000-3000 fans and you play music that lends itself to a full seating venue with no standing room floor? Great, you can play the Jubilee.

Every other band? Go **** yourself.

Saddledome: Old, outdated, and we miss almost half of the major touring acts that hit Edmonton and Vancouver due to our roof.

BMO centre: Sure, you can fit more people than Mac Hall, which is good for electronica, metal bands, popular punk bands etc, but the sound is absolutely terrible

Stampede Corral: Capacity is optimal for bands that aren't big enough for the Dome, but too big for Mac Hall/Jubilee (I blieve the Corral holds 5-6000 for concerts), but again, absoutely terrible acoustics that completely ruin some shows, and a pathetic appearance for major touring artists....

"Hey welcome to Calgary, major touring artist, you'll find our city is a booming metropolis, with state of the art infrastructure. A true world class city. Now just step through these ugly back doors, and please ignore the smell of cow manure. As well we must warn you that your set will sound so awful due to the acoutsics in here, that the review in tomorrow's paper is assured to be dedicated to your poor sound, and it's all your fans will be talking about after the show. Oh, and when you look out at the seats and it looks like the rows of seats in the corners are going up at an angle, you're not high, that's actually happening."

[SebC]

In the short term, it would be nice if they built another hall in the slot between the existing BMO Centre and the casino (map).

[SebC]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

Yes, they do but that's a problem Calgary has. It's silly this city doesn't have a world class exhibition hall.

Could the new convention centre fullfill this role, or are we talking something different? (The article does say the new convention centre would have a trade show floor about the size of Roundup, so it may be redundant rather than an improvement for the CCEE perspective.)

[GirlySports]

yeah Jubilee and jack singer seems to be competing for the same acts

Max Bell is bigger than them but smaller than corral?

[Julio]

Originally Posted by SebC

Could the new convention centre fullfill this role, or are we talking something different? (The article does say the new convention centre would have a trade show floor about the size of Roundup, so it may be redundant rather than an improvement for the CCEE perspective.)

Your story is 3 years old...dunno how accurate it is.

[TurnedTheCorner]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

This thing needs to be outdoors, make a real killing

Nerds and the outdoors?

[Julio]

Originally Posted by SebC

In the short term, it would be nice if they built another hall in the slot between the existing BMO Centre and the casino (map).

That's the plan...which is why when they built Hall E (the newest one) in BMO Centre they did the front concourse all the way down to the casino.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

yeah Jubilee and jack singer seems to be competing for the same acts

Max Bell is bigger than them but smaller than corral?

Max Bell holds about 2100 for hockey, and concert capacities are always smaller than hockey capacities at arenas. Mac Hall holds about 2000 and the Jubilee holds 2800, I believe, so there isn't much advantage to playing Max Bell.

It's weird though, because you used to hear of lots of concerts there in the 90's/early 2000's, and then they just randomly stopped booking concrts there.

[Julio]

Originally Posted by flameswin

Stampede Corral: Capacity is optimal for bands that aren't big enough for the Dome, but too big for Mac Hall/Jubilee (I blieve the Corral holds 5-6000 for concerts), but again, absoutely terrible acoustics that completely ruin some shows, and a pathetic appearance for major touring artists....

"Hey welcome to Calgary, major touring artist, you'll find our city is a booming metropolis, with state of the art infrastructure. A true world class city. Now just step through these ugly back doors, and please ignore the smell of cow manure. As well we must warn you that your set will sound so awful due to the acoutsics in here, that the review in tomorrow's paper is assured to be dedicated to your poor sound, and it's all your fans will be talking about after the show. Oh, and when you look out at the seats and it looks like the rows of seats in the corners are going up at an angle, you're not high, that's actually happening."

The 3000-7000 seat venue in major cities with a larger arena is usually not in a great building. If you look at a lot of the acts that play the Corral they play similar types of venues in other cities, like the Agricom in Vancouver or the Expo Centre in Edmonton, or they play in curtained off 'theatres' in large arenas, such as CUC in Saskatoon and the MTS Centre in Winnipeg.
And I have almost certainly been backstage at more concerts in the Corral than anybody else here, and have not smelt cow manure for any of them.

[Julio]

Originally Posted by flameswin

Max Bell holds about 2100 for hockey, and concert capacities are always smaller than hockey capacities at arenas. Mac Hall holds about 2000 and the Jubilee holds 2800, I believe, so there isn't much advantage to playing Max Bell.

It's weird though, because you used to hear of lots of concerts there in the 90's/early 2000's, and then they just randomly stopped booking concrts there.

Max Bell held a bit more than that for concerts, because they lost minimal seating behind the stage and game the 1000 or so seats/standing room that you get on the arena floor (this varies more because of fire regs on exits etc than on the actual space on the floor)
And I believe Max Bell stopped doing concerts in part when the city took it over from Larry Rychman they weren't that interested in the business. Also, I think when they were going to have to do some additional work to the building to bring it up to fire code to have those 1000 people on the floor and didn't want to spend the $.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Julio

The 3000-7000 seat venue in major cities with a larger arena is usually not in a great building. If you look at a lot of the acts that play the Corral they play similar types of venues in other cities, like the Agricom in Vancouver or the Expo Centre in Edmonton, or they play in curtained off 'theatres' in large arenas, such as CUC in Saskatoon and the MTS Centre in Winnipeg.
And I have almost certainly been backstage at more concerts in the Corral than anybody else here, and have not smelt cow manure for any of them.

Fair enough, my comments were based on living in Calgary almost my whole life. I wasn't aware that most big cities don't have suitable venues for the 3-7000k range. So I'll retract that, but the Corral has certainly had a lingering cow manure smell on more than one occassion.

[Julio]

Originally Posted by flameswin

Fair enough, my comments were based on living in Calgary almost my whole life. I wasn't aware that most big cities don't have suitable venues for the 3-7000k range. So I'll retract that, but the Corral has certainly had a lingering cow manure smell on more than one occasion.

I would suggest that the 'cow manure' smell might be in the mind or perhaps other odors, as cow have been in the Corral about 6 days a year for the past 2 or 3 years, (horses a bit more because of the show during Stampede this year) but no matter, we'll agree to disagree on this one.

I'm really excited Weird Al is coming to the Expo, but honestly would be surprised if he sold out the Corral. Last time he was here he didn't sell out the Jack Singer, and that was at the tail end of "White and Nerdy'. The time before that (at the height of White and Nerdy) I went to Saskatoon instead of seeing him at Century Casino.

As for the overcrowding at the Expo last year a couple of thoughts...the Home and Garden Show that is held every spring actually has more people going through the doors every year. Now granted that people stay longer than at the Home Show, but I think that part of the problem is the signage and the whole process of how people get around the show and how they know where to go for certain things has to be improved. Given that though, perhaps they do have to limit attendance in order to give a better experience to attendees.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

yeah Jubilee and jack singer seems to be competing for the same acts

Generally speaking, one is a concert hall and one is a theater. Both have regular tenants that fill up a lot of their dates. There may be some overlap, but not nearly enough to make one redundant.

Originally Posted by Julio

Your story is 3 years old...dunno how accurate it is.

Yeah, I just wanted to have something to back up the rumours.

Originally Posted by Julio

That's the plan...which is why when they built Hall E (the newest one) in BMO Centre they did the front concourse all the way down to the casino.

I know, but is there any info out on the timeline for building it? Doesn't seem (to this casual observer) to be any good reason to not be building it now.

[The Goon]

Pretty good guest list so far, and it's early. Looking forward to more announcements.

[Julio]

Originally Posted by SebC

I know, but is there any info out on the timeline for building it? Doesn't seem (to this casual observer) to be any good reason to not be building it now.

About 30 million of them I think. Stampede is currently building a new ag building (that big construction site south of the Saddledome), which is a project they have been talking about for at least a decade, so that's the priority.
http://corporate.calgarystampede.com...-event-centre/
After that (depending on what happens with the Big Four) they might look at a further expansion of the BMO Centre.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by flameswin

Saddledome: Old, outdated, and we miss almost half of the major touring acts that hit Edmonton and Vancouver due to our roof.

Mayor Nenshi told the Fan 960 that he called a concert promoter, and he was told Calgary only loses 1 or 2 concerts a year that Edmonton gets, because of the Dome. The issue is not the roof, but the scoreboard.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by troutman

Mayor Nenshi told the Fan 960 that he called a concert promoter, and he was told Calgary only loses 1 or 2 concerts a year that Edmonton gets, because of the Dome. The issue is not the roof, but the scoreboard.

I'd love to hear more on that, as it doesn't make any sense to me. Our scoreclock is standard and similar to most new scoreclocks. They're all around the same size.

The only thing I can think if is that our scoreclock can't retract high enough to get out of the way, but that wouldn't be a scoreclock issue, that would again be the roof.

[Julio]

I think it's a combination of the two issues. The rood itself (or rather the rigging just under the roof)can support a total weight that all buildings have calculated. I can see that with this type of roof the total weight would be less than from a 'normal' roof. Given that the current clock is much bigger than the old one, maybe it dropped the amount of weight that is available below what a bunch of these shows need.

[KTrain]

Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flanery of Boondock Saints/Walking Dead fame were announced today.

[Bertuzzied]

Holy crap. Glen and Michonne are coming to the calgary expo too!

Can't wait!