Before the Connecticut Convention Center even existed, Matthew Daigle was telling his friends that he’d be there hosting an event. What made his boasts remarkable was the fact that Daigle was a student at the University of Hartford still trying to earn a degree.
Starting July 13, the fifth-annual ConnectiCon, and third consecutive to be held in the convention center, could draw more than 4,000 devoted fans of comics, anime, video games and a host of other genres.
It is a far cry from its start on the University of Hartford campus in the summer of 2003 when roughly 800 people attended.
In the fall of 2002, Daigle, then 23 with a self-described “love of all things geek,” presented the idea of running a convention on campus with the help of four friends.
“We really put that first one together with glue and Popsicle sticks,” said Daigle. “I was an entrepreneurial studies major, so my senior project ending up becoming an actual business.”
Daigle’s notion of starting a “geek” convention began in high school when he attended other similar conventions with thousands of others in places like Columbus, Ohio, and Baltimore.
“It showed me that it could be done,” he said. “I didn’t know why there wasn’t one in New England with the population here. That’s why I started it, because I didn’t want to travel to Columbus.”
There were events in New England, but the attendance at most would max out at a few hundred and Daigle believed there was a defined and burgeoning market for such an event.
His friends were a little more skeptical.
A Nervous Start
Paul Gilbert, one of the initial five volunteers that put together the 2003 event, said that the months spent organizing the first event were littered with uncertainty.
“At that point, we weren’t sure if we could even break even or if this was going to be a success,” said Gilbert. “We were still kind of nervous but Matt was confident.”
It was Daigle’s confidence that led him to proclaim his brainchild would soon blossom into an event that could move downtown.
Hoping to get 500 people through the doors to break even, the estimated attendance topped 800 and immediately the wheels were set in motion for a second event the following year on the University of Hartford campus.
The 2004 event drew almost 2,000 people and as attendance grew, so did the stature of guests. Included among the guests at the second event were Peter Mayhew, better known as Chewbacca from Star Wars, and Bob May, who voiced the robot from Lost in Space.
Big Ideas
With the event growing and expenses growing on the college campus, Daigle and the ConnectiCon staff made the decision to move the event to the Connecticut Convention Center as one of the first events to be held in the facility.
The center’s relative newness and Daigle’s then-naïve nature nearly derailed ConnectiCon after its third year.
“I thought we had a verbal understanding that it was going to cost about $10,000 to rent the space,” said Daigle. “Both sides had never really dealt with a large contract and they didn’t know all their operational costs. So about nine days before, they tell me that the costs are actually going to be $35,000. Yep, 2005 was a fun year.”
About 2,800 people came to the 2005 ConnectiCon but, with the added costs and the money already spent on guests, Daigle and company were nearly $35,000 short of just breaking even.
“Some of the Web comics found out about it and they didn’t want to lose this,” said Daigle. “So they organized, got together and asked people who came to their site to donate $1 at least. In nine days, they raised the money.”
Smart Marketing
In five years, the budget for the convention has increased from $20,000 that first year to $130,000 and the number of volunteer staff that helped organize the event has gone from five to 35. The growth can be attributed to positive word of mouth reviews and guerilla advertising.
“We put our 9 by 12 poster, our flyer, anywhere we can,” said Daigle. “We’ll put them up in restaurants, at smaller events, at baseball games, anywhere they’ll let us. We go to other events and let people know that, hey, there’s more stuff going on here.”
That isn’t to say the organizers have completely ignored more traditional ways of advertising.
Last year, Best Buy of Newington signed on as a sponsor and anyone checking out with a video game or anime DVD was notified of the event. Along with Best Buy, Daigle said GameSpot has become a sponsor this year to provide prizes and video games.
“There might be a kid out there who likes anime but may not know about us,” Daigle said.
This year’s event begins at 8 a.m. July 13 and ends at 6 p.m. July 15 and the attendance goal is 4,500, though Daigle said only 3,200 are needed to break even. The event’s Web site is www.connecticon.com.