The Local Economic Impact of Geek’d Con 2019
Shreveport's comic con, Geek'd Con, had a record-setting event earlier this month. The event saw thousands of geeks descend on the Shreveport Convention Center in Downtown Shreveport for a weekend full of celebrity encounters, geeky shopping, cosplay, live art, story telling, prizes, and more.
This was the largest event of it's kind in Shreveport history, and one of the biggest in Louisiana. In fact, Shreveport's Geek'd Con has become the largest locally produced event of it's kind in the state. (There are larger comic con style events, but they're produced from out of state)
In this record-setting year, there were a lot of numbers thrown around. From how many attendees were at the event, to how much cheese was consumed at the concession stands, numbers have been flying. But now we have the experts' take.
The Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau recently conducted a piece of research around the numbers for Geek'd Con, and the results might be more impressive than the cheese number.
Let's start with the two big numbers everyone asks about, the economic impact and total attendees.
First, economic impact...back in 2016 (the year with Elvira) the Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau put the economic impact of the event was around $1.4 million for the Shreveport area. For this year's event, that economic impact has grown to $2.2 million for the Shreveport area.
When it comes to attendance, the metrics are normally all over, because there's really no clean way to do a head count with that many people, in that big of an area. So we cross reference multiple metrics to come to a conservative conclusion. First we measure ticket sales and used wristbands/badges, which gives us a starting point. Then we take the numbers provided by the Shreveport Convention Center, and measure them against our other metrics. Now we have another number to add, as the Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau includes a number in their research piece.
Based on all of these numbers, the high estimate for this year's attendance is 26,000 people. While the conservative estimate is 18,000. So it will be very safe to say more than 15,000 geeks made their way through the Shreveport Convention Center for the event.