560,000 people? Last year's Summer Comiket had in excess of 70,000 attendees. I don't think the convention hall could fit half a million people, and I'm positive that Comiket's attendance wouldn't swell by a factor of
8 in just one year. That's insane. Even swelling by a factor of
2 would be hard to swallow.
But I guarantee you that Comiket
is going to split into a Kantou and a Kansai event held during the same three-day weekend. It's no longer a question of if but of when. The event's organizers
have to do it. Locals are already upset with the annual otaku exodus, and the otaku themselves are so anti-social that they're sick and tired of one another's problems. It made for some good jokes in Genshiken, but it's a lot less funny when you're stood there in real life and find yourself pissed off by how sweaty people are, how creepy they are, how stinky they are, etc.
"How do we divide up the circles?" This is a question for which I cannot come up with any simple solution. Complicated solutions, I can come up with.
But not a simple one.
[hide]My best idea so far would be to divide the convention's circles into four groups. Have groups A and B start off in Tokyo, and groups C and D start off in Kyoto. The groups attend their respective Comikets for 2 days. Then, they hop on board the Shinkansen and switch places with the other groups. So now A and B would be in Kyoto, and C and D would now be in Tokyo.
This way, every city gets to see every circle. The circles could even be instructed to please save 50% of their wares for the second city. The event would not prevent fans from going to both cities, but I think it's fair to say that a
ton of Tokyo otaku have been spoiled by having Comiket in their home city, and they do not have the drive to hop on the train and go to a different prefecture in the
off chance of
maaaaybe getting a copy of their favorite circle's doujin.
And if they do hop on the train? Then they must be
mega fans, and I say "all the more power to them, then."
Every group of the four would have some popular circles, some unpopular ones, and many average ones. This way, they'd be balanced. (Hopefully.)
The problem is, what happens if you're a hentai fan of 20+ authors and you have favorites who are in
both Kyoto and in Tokyo on the same day? My answer is one the otaku wouldn't like, and that's "Tough shit: pick and choose." I'd tell them to pick which doujin matters to them most and go to the city where they think they have the best chances of snagging a copy of it. "BUT TAKEDA HIROMITSU'S GOING TO BE IN TOKYO THE SAME DAY FATALPULSE IS GOING TO BE IN KYOTO! IT'S NOT FAIR! ;_;" I'd tell him to calm the fuck down and remind him that the circles have been instructed to not sell more than 50% of their wares during the first few days of the convention, in order to save some for fans in the other city.[/hide]
Another option is ...
[hide]transform Comiket into an event where doujinshi are premiered but not exclusively sold. In other words,
anyone can get their favorite artist's doujin if they really want it, but only the people who attend Comiket can get the Special Edition.
And what's so special about the Special Edition? Only two things.
1. You get it days to weeks before the rest of the planet. Big deal.
2. Yours is
personally signed by the circle members. You go up to the booth like in today's Comiket, you buy the doujin like in today's Comiket, but then you give the circle member(s) a notecard with a 10 words or less message you want them to sign, and they'll sign it on the reverse of the back cover and then finish it off with their signature or
hanko stamp, whatever they're most comfortable with.
This way, people aren't so cut-throat at Comiket to get erodoujinshi, and the event becomes a lot less hostile and a whole lot more friendly.[/hide]