Oh, there are some obvious things that allow San Diego to keep prices down. They're in the same city each year with substantial committee continuity (and for the last few years including paid staff continuity). They reached a point where they could afford/fit a convention center...and kept growing. As Kevin's pointed out in this thread, there's a cost discontinuity when you jump to convention center size...but then for a while after that, the incremental cost of each additional member is very low...and San Diego's now at the point where there are tens of thousands of members with very low incremental cost. Add the income from the Dealer's Room in, the surcharge on hotel rooms to pay for shuttle buses, and that really there aren't significant per-member costs at-con (i.e. at best a very unused pseudo-con suite).
I'd strongly argue that the program is not anywhere near 40% literary though. Even if you count comics as literary, a lot of that programming amounts to company promotion panels ("What's New in the DCU", "Spider-Man In the Next Year", etc.). They're also not immune to organizational problems. For the past several years, with last year reaching a peak, Pro Registration has had lines/delays on Wednesday that'd cause Worldcon Registration folk to be talked about for years after.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2006-05-14 05:01 am (UTC)I'd strongly argue that the program is not anywhere near 40% literary though. Even if you count comics as literary, a lot of that programming amounts to company promotion panels ("What's New in the DCU", "Spider-Man In the Next Year", etc.). They're also not immune to organizational problems. For the past several years, with last year reaching a peak, Pro Registration has had lines/delays on Wednesday that'd cause Worldcon Registration folk to be talked about for years after.