SEATTLE — Thursday kicked off the first Emerald City Comic Con (ECCC) in three years taking place at its usual time. The COVID-19 pandemic canceled 2020 and delayed 2021 and 2022.
"We're actually seeing it (attendance) rise year over year. We see more people being comfortable, wanting to come back," Fallon Prinzivalli, Emerald City Comic Con Marketing Director, said.
Prinzivalli expects this year's ECCC will bring in 75,000 people. The venue, Seattle Convention Center Summit, officially opened in January. Prinzivalli says the building is a dream for their event.
"This building is fantastic. It is a beautiful building, state-of-the-art. When we did the walk-through, we really felt like they built this building for us," she said. Countless people also remarked on the building as they entered and explored all the levels.
Downtown stakeholders are banking the $2 billion investment in this new convention center will pay dividends in return for Downtown Seattle. James Sido with the Downtown Seattle Association says events like ECCC make all the work to build the Summit worth it.
"It means our coffee shops, our restaurants, hotels, retailers they're all going to benefit from this," Sido said. "When you see stuff like this, big Seattle events like this, signature events, I think people do make a couple days out of it. Hopefully, we'll see that coming to fruition here in downtown."
The Downtown Recovery Dashboard shows nearly two million visitors came downtown in January. That's 93% of January 2019's visitor total. Sido believes events like Emerald City Comic Con will help boost those numbers, bringing notoriety to the new convention center, helping downtown continue its recovery.
Yogesh Balaje Mahendran & Parker Bibus came to ECCC for the first time on Thursday. They were astounded, in a good way, by the Summit.
"I think his expression was wow when he first saw the building outside. We thought the convention was in the old one, but damn, this is awesome," Mahendran said.
The duo, dressed as Mario & Luigi, say events like this in a space like this go hand-in-hand to bolster good things happening in downtown Seattle.
"I think it's having a lot of people come together, grows the community. That's good," Mahendran said.
"Having the space to do something like this, having events like this for everyone is great," Bibus said.
Karan Ashley & Walter Jones, best known for their groundbreaking roles in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, sang the praises of ECCC and Seattle.
"Any time you come to Comic Con, especially Emerald City, it's just a happy place," Jones said.
"Seattle is just one of those very popular cities. It's just one of those things. We know there are a lot of fans here," Ashley said.
The trailblazing duo had much more to say to KING 5's Cornelius Hocker in the interview below.
Emerald City Comic Con goes throughout the weekend. Tickets are still available and can be found by clicking this sentence.