Will G5 bring old cons or new ones ?

[Angle Alastor 3,805]

So with the show ending and gen 5 is upon us will the new generation bring back some old cons or bring in some new ones ? :3

[Splashee 28,537]

You mean, will G4's current cons be the same when G5 arrives, focusing on G4, or will they be new and only accept G5 as their main feature?

The first thing most will say is that no one knows what G5 will be, or how successful it will be, so no one can answer (at this time).

 

But let's say G5 is unsuccessful or mediocre at best. There must still be a huge G4 community around to keep the old cons going.
If G5 is popular, there is no reason to keep G4 around, so new cons (old ones with new names maybe).

 

When it comes to G5, I am mostly just afraid there will become a conflict between G4's Rainbow Dash fans and G5's Rainbow Dash fans. Also, what will G5 be without a Derpy pony? We can only wait and see what G5 will do to our current community.

[cuteycindyhoney 13,282]

Let's all wait and see!

[Fhaolan 4,468]

Cons, Festivals, and Faires in general, no matter what the specialty, are having problems over the last ten or so years. Attendance has been steadily dropping across the board according to the reports I've been seeing from places like Norwescon, Gen Con, PAX, various music festivals and renfaires. (To be clear, I haven't seen any stats from this year, so take this analysis with a grain of salt.)

It feels like these events are getting more and more expensive to attend, there's very little 'new' happening at them, so it's getting harder for people to justify the time off to attend. There was a bit of a glut on the market, at least in this region. To my knowledge, last year there was a general sci-fi/fantasy con, an anime con, a brony con, a furry con, a doctor who con, a star wars con, a horror con, a tabletop gaming con, a video gaming con, a costume con, a comic con, two different food festivals, more than three music festivals, SeaFaire (which I still am not entire sure what it is, but the Blue Angles show up to perform at it), five weekends of Ren Faires, six different SCA events, four pirate festivals, three different goth events... My wife was a vendor at about half of them, with the same greater group of vendors all rotating through all the events so walking into one dealer's room was much the same as walking into any of the other dealer rooms. And they were all something like $20-$60 a day to attend + hotel if you were from out of town.

There comes a breaking point, and I think we hit that last year. Several of those festivals/faires/cons aren't happening *this* year as the organizers just can't justify it with the cost of venues and the attendance numbers.

So will there be G5 cons? Probably, but it might take some time for the general con market to rest and reset before they can be successful.

[Splashee 28,537]

@Fhaolan That's some great insight! Thank you for the information

[Lucky Bolt 34,914]

I really think it'd be neat if G5 brought some new cons into existence...perhaps one or two in the SOUTHEASTERN US   

[Cash In 21,488]

Only time will truly answer that question.

[EpicEnergy 22,064]

It's possible that G5 will cause new conventions to start up, but it really depends on G5's success.