I recently mentioned the likelihood that Convention Scene would be changing hosting companies. While I had been happy with the service at WP Engine, they recently informed me that they were increasing my hosting fee 400% and offered no help as to how I might modify the site to get it back down to a lower pricing tier. Naturally, this did not make me very happy so I began exploring my options. While a top WordPress consultant I spoke with recommended I go with a VPS (Virtual Private Server), that is something I really did not want to get into. I moved the site to WP Engine in the first place because I was tired of constantly tinkering with server settings, trying to make the site run better.

Looking around, I found a killer deal at LightningBase, a newcomer to the WordPress hosting scene. This isn’t really an endorsement since we just got moved over to their service today, but the site seems a smidge faster, don’t you think? Hopefully, we’ve found a stable home.

This will not be a popular announcement, but I need to let you know that our sidebar advertising rates will be increasing as of February 1st.

• Our Standard 125×125 Block Ads will go from $125 a year to $175 a year
• Our Supersized 120×240 Block Ads will go from $225 a year to $300 a year

Related to this, it looks like we will soon be changing hosting companies again. While we have been happy with WP Engine where the site has been hosted for over a year, they recently informed us of their intention to quadruple our hosting fees. Whether we move the site to a new host or not, we are looking at a significant increase in our hostings costs, necessitating an increase in our advertising revenue. We are sorry if this causes us to lose some clients along the way, but frankly, if we have fewer clients to serve, we will be able to provide better service to those remaining.

So if you have ever been on the fence about taking out a sidebar ad, now is the time to jump off it. If you are a current advertiser, you are welcome to renew your ad ahead of time in order to take advantage of our current rates.

All other advertising rates (banners, skyscrapers, etc.) will remain the same.

Current advertising rates and specifications can be found here:

http://www.conventionscene.com/advertise/site-wide-ads/

Contact me with any questions.

For every $100 you spend on advertising with us between now and September 5th, we’ll throw in 10,000 banner impressions in the top spot by our logo. So if you take out one of our year-round 125×125 ads or a skyscraper ad for a month, you will be entitled to 10,000 banner impressions (a $30 value). If you purchase our supersized 120×240 ad size, you will be entitled to 20,000 banner impressions (a $60 value).

Current advertisers are welcome to process an early renewal to take advantage of this offer as well.

Ads can be purchased from this page.

*This does not include ad creation. If you do not supply your own ad, there is a one-time $25 charge to create your ad. If you will need it updated throughout the year, there is an additional $25 maintenance fee.

If you create your own ad, please submit it to brian@con…

All Business Cards and Convention Scene have joined together to offer free business cards to our visitors. There are 3 different ways to win, and each winner will receive 500 free business cards. The cards can be single or double sided, printed on thick 16pt card stock, and have a Glossy UV finish, a Matte Finish, or can come uncoated. Shipping (UPS ground) is included so the cost to winners is absolutely nothing. The contest is open only to US and Canadian entrants. We will accept entries for all 3 methods through April 3rd.

1) First way to win: Just leave a comment on this post!

2) Second way to win: Enter on our Convention Scene Facebook page. Just look for the “Sweepstakes” link on the left under our logo.

3) Third way to win: Follow us on Twitter and post about the giveaway. Your Twitter message needs to include both @conventionscene and @allbusinesscard in it. For your convenience, I have included a special Tweet button below which includes a message with that info in it.

Tweet

Good luck!

I am happy to report that all submitted shows for 2010 are up on our Events Calendar (so if you know of a show that is not listed, it means no one ever submitted it).

We already have a lot of 2011 shows listed and will be adding more in the weeks to come, but if you want to make sure sure your 2011 shows are up on the calendar before the end of this year, we encourage you to purchase a Premium Promoter membership. Normally $50 per year, until the end of November, you can purchase one for just $40 (if you already have a membership and would like to add on another year by renewing at this rate, that’s fine, too).

More information and the sign-up link can be found here. As soon as you pay for your membership, be sure to fill out the activation form here.

Any questions, post them below or contact us here.

We’re in the midst of some changes around here, and one important one I need to share with you is our new Premium Convention Submission Form. Our new form requires you to be logged into the site in order to view and submit the form. For those of you who have been with us since we our transformation from Comic Book Conventions.com to Convention Scene last year may remember that is the way the site worked initially.

You will need your permission level raised by our staff so please fill out our Premium Promoter Activation Form.

If you have any questions feel free to post them here or use our Contact Form.

SDCC Community Hub

We’re always trying new things to make Convention Scene the best it can be. Some recent examples of that is the SDCC Community Hub that appeared at the top of our site as well as the Community Links section that can be found toward the bottom. Both of these allow us to get content onto the site easily and quickly plus all of the convention news, con reports, and YouTube videos we post appear in our Twitter stream and on our Facebook Fan Page. Plus, there’s  a submission page where you can easily submit links to us.

So what do you think? Do you find them useful? Would you like to see a Community Hub setup for other conventions? Please comment below.

These widgets and any other ones we add will also be avaiable under Resources – Widgets. Like to see a widget for something else? Let us know in the comments below.

The Original FASN Poster

It all started with a poster. Seriously. My foray into the World Wide Web began with an assignment to create a poster for a class in Photoshop I was taking, back around 1998. Having had the idea for a while to start a website listing all the events going on in Florida, I used the assignment as an opportunity to create a nice collage of images of celebrities taken at conventions (mostly by resident Convention Scene photographer Dwayne Gill) and launch my first website…FASN, The Florida Autograph Seekers’ Network. Located at GeoCities, the site is long gone, and I don’t even have a screenshot of it, but it paved the way for everything to follow.

CBC in September 2000

My next launch came in March 0f 2000: Comic Book Conventions.com. This was my first attempt at using actual web design software – Adobe GoLive. Made from scratch myself,

Autograph Alliance in November 2002

the site was primitive, largely ignored at first, and often went months without an update.

I considered Comic Book Conventions.com just a warmup, though. My real target was my next website – Autograph Alliance, launched in August of 2000. Replacing FASN, Autograph Alliance was supposed to do for the whole country what FASN did for Florida. And it worked. For awhile.

Thinking to create a network of sites under one central domain, I moved Autograph Alliance under the domain of Massive Universe and made plans to do the same thing for Comic Book Conventions.com.

CBC in November 2002

But a funny thing happened along the way. In 2002, I decided to buy a template and do a redesign of Comic Book Conventions.com. And lo and behold, I got an advertiser…Capital Associates. Still with us today in the form of Capicons.com. And I got more advertisers.

Comic Book Conventions.com was making money. Autograph Alliance was taking a tremendous amount of time and wasn’t making money. The writing was on the wall. It only made sense to concentrate my efforts on what was working, and that meant Comic Book Conventions.com. And so I did.

And Comic Book Conventions.com had a great run. The site grew in popularity and word of it spread throughout the industry. Slowly but surely it became the place to check when you were planning your convention schedule for the year. But as the years went on, I felt like the site was stuck. While I watched other sites grow and evolve, I felt trapped by Comic Book Conventions.com stagnant HTML, riddled with bad code that I could never hope to clean up. Sure, I rolled out a few changes and

CBC in January 2005

improvements as time went on, but I knew the site could be more. I wanted it to be more. I knew it would be more.

For years, I began making plans, always telling my friends, “Next year. You’ll see. A whole new relaunch.” But funds set aside for programmers always ended up going for something else. So I waited. I waited until I found the right pieces of technology that I could knit together myself to create a superior site, one with a database of events, and a true archive, and RSS feeds for whatever you could possibly want.

Convention Scene in March 2010

So in late 2008 I began putting it together. While things did not come together in time to launch it for MegaCon 2009, I finally pulled the trigger in May of 2009 and Convention Scene was born, the latest in a long line of my internet endeavors. And I know Convention Scene has its detractors, those who long for the simplicity of Comic Book Conventions.com. But while I’m taking a look down memory lane today, I’m also looking ahead to the future. I still believe Convention Scene is only reaching the tip of the iceberg of its potential. But that’s a conversation for another day. For now, I hope you enjoyed this look back and will stay with us for the ride to come.

Just having some fun with Marvel’s “I am an Avenger” campaign.

For those of you who may not have visited us at our old Comic Book Conventions.com site, Connie was our Convention Awards/sometime site mascot. I plan to revisit the Convention Awards idea again, but it’s not in the cards for this year.

Thanks to The Weekly Crisis for the template.

And thanks again to Michael Golden, who provided this awesome rendition of Connie.