The event organizers at Reed Exhibitions have confirmed on Thursday that New York Comic Con and New York Anime Festival will share the same weekend and location next year. Both events will take place at the Jacob K. Javits Center in Midtown Manhattan on October 8-10, 2010. While the two events will have separate guest rosters and programming schedules, they will share a common show floor and one ticket price. Each ticket will give an attendee access to both events.
The first New York Anime Festival was held in the same center on December 7-9, 2007, while the second outing was held on September 26-28, 2008. The 2010 announcement comes two weeks before the event returns to the Javits Center for a third time on September 25-27.
In its four years of existence, New York Comic Con has been mostly held in February, although it moved to April last year. Lance Fensterman, Vice President of the Reed Exhibitions Pop Culture Group, explained that the date move will better accommodate Reed's other major North American pop culture event, Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo. "We are launching the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo (C2E2) in April 2010, and we have moved NYCC to a permanent October date, thus providing a spring and fall balance to these two key events which will remain in place as we move forward. Rather than create a third date for NYAF, it was decided a co-location would be better for anime fans, professionals, exhibitors, and partners."