ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the economics of industrial participation at San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC). Industry participation at SDCC should be understood as an effort to construct an identity of "good fan", and to incorporate attendees into that identity. Fans in attendance do enjoy a number of affective benefits from the convention—engagement with a community of like-minded, self-identified geeks; the cachet of privileged access at the event; and the direct attention of media producers courting fan interest. The experience of fan convention is generated in the planning, navigating, enjoying, and archiving of the event itself, but it is limited to those in attendance. The chapter considers the most visible influences of industrial interest at SDCC, the programming and content of the panel presentations, the giveaways and autograph lotteries on the convention's trade floor. It argues that these elements may invoke the rhetoric of participatory culture, but in fact legitimate fan identity that reinforces industrial dominance and traditional audience behavior.
