Comic-Con is the mack daddy of all cons. There were approximately 130,000 nerds there this year. The whole of San Diego was taken over – every hotel for miles was booked.
That being said, it was just a con. Bigger, yes, but ultimately, like any other con. The San Diego Convention Center is so big that it can totally fit 130k people without feeling hella full. The building is, oh, I’d say about 2 or 3 city blocks (A NY city block is approximately 1/5 of a mile) long (map here). It was bigger with more walking, but the feel was the same. I must also point out that even the most popular panels were accessible. Of course the top 5 panels had campers and long lines, but generally you could get into everything. For the Harold & Kumar and Torchwood panels we walked right in. Registration was a breeze as well, once you got there (literally 15 seconds for both of us) the line took about 1.5 hours. It totally puts DragonCon into the category of amateurs, I can tell you that (3-4 hour waits for about 1/3 of the attendees). Comic-Con has full time staff, con staff, convention center staff AND a few volunteers. Crowd control was amazing and very, very smooth. It’s also a non-profit that reinvests into the Con. Our little scruffy con does none of that – and it shows.