Comic Con HQ the Answer For the Future?

If you haven’t experience it, San Diego Comic-Con is one of the hardest conventions to attend. The process to get a ticket is a big ordeal and if you are one of the lucky ones to purchase a ticket, it gets pricey, fast. Comic Con itself is also massively crowded due to its popularity. Because of this, an attendee would have to camp out in line if they want the chance to get into Hall H (the largest panel room at the event), or Ballroom 20.  Issues like these has plagued Comic Con for a good while and organizers have been trying to find a way so everyone can experience the magic that makes people want attend it. Well, Comic Con may have found a solution. At Wondercon 2016, Comic Con revealed a new video on demand service called Comic Con HQ (CCHQ). For a small monthly fee, Comic Con will be live streaming events at their conventions and viewers at home will not miss a thing. I got the chance to speak with Seth Laderman, Vice president of Comic Con HQ and boy, did he have some terrific things to say about the platform… 

CFG: This is the Very first time Comic Con HQ has been announced at Wondercon, could you tell me a little more about it?

 

We are a subscription on demand platform, think of it as a mini Netflix as you will but catering directly towards this audience. With the goal of taking the amazing 5 days of Comic-Con and the amazing 3 days of Wondercon and turning it into a year round event where we will be producing a lot of original content. We will always have three to four hundred films and tv series on our platform. We will be working with the network, the studios, the brands to provide those DVD extras type pieces of content that the audience knows and loves, and we are going to be streaming from conventions. We will start with Comic Con and Wondercon and then we will eventually spread out around the world. 

CFG: When will the streaming service start?

 

We will be Launching on May 7th, which will be free comic book day. We are the principle partner of it along with Diamond Comics. On that day, we will be available on the web, iOS ,and Android devices and it will be completely free for two and a half months, through Comic Con. So anyone who wants to come and be part of it and experience it, you can communicate with us. You do not have to pay a cent for two and a half months where we will have a lot of original content and our license library content as well. 

CFG: We all know how hard it is to get into San Diego Comic Con itself, and this platform sounds like its the best way to get access to it. What was the initial idea for this? Has it been in the works for a while?

 

Yes! I joined back in June of last year but this has been in the works for a while before with the teams at Lionsgate and Comic-Con. They really wanted to partner together to figure out what is the best way to bring this experience year around. A big part what we are going to do is going to be shooting a lot at Comic Con. We will be livestreaming for 5 to 6 hours a day. I am going to have crews all around town as much as possible to really be able to bring it to people who can’t make it, also enhance it for people who are there. Since there is over 800 hours of content there its literally impossible to see everything. We really want to cover as much as possible: panels from the biggest rooms of Hall H to the smallest rooms there because every piece of content out is great in this world. To the floor, covering all the booths as many as possible, the outside sites and activations, the ICE awards, the masquerades. We’re really trying to take that awesome experience to bring it to life in a digital way. 

 

CFG: Your Wondercon CCHQ booth is designed like a giant timeline from the beginning of San Diego Comic Con. Will CCHQ show past Comic Con experiences?

 

Absolutely, San Diego started with 100 people in a basement at a hotel 45 years ago and now. Now it has turned into one of the biggest pop culture events in the world. They have been covering and shooting content for years. So we are working on digitizing that content and putting it up so people can actually experience things that happened throughout those years. But knowing how Comic Con became what it is today is going to be a big factor for in us growing and building. The guys at Comic-Con International program an event for themselves. Because they are fans, they are the audience. And that is what is transmitted to us. 

 

CFG: Is there a monthly subscription fee that CCHQ has agreed on?

 

We don’t have the price yet because what we are doing is communicating with the audience and doing a lot of market research to figure out what people want to pay for something like this. We know its not easy to pay a couple dollars a month. What I can tell you is that we are not trying to compete with Netflix and Hulus of the world so it won’t be that expensive. In a way, it is almost similar to on a Wednesday when you come to the comic book shop,  where you do not think twice about paying $3.99 for a new comic. We want that to be the similar thing. At the end of each month, we are wanting it to be a very very affordable price. 

 

CFG: How would one sign up for this service? 

 

We have a website: comic-conhq.com. If you go there now, you just need to put your email address in. Everything is completely free. We will let you know a day or two before we launch when we will be launching and how you can get it. You will be able to download the app, you will be able to use the website,  and then you will be fully involved with everything.