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Multiple Signs Point Toward San Diego Comic-Con 2016 Dates As July 20-24 [UPDATE: Confirmed]

[UPDATE] Thanks to Gender Biased Reviews, we noticed that the San Diego Convention Center has changed their calendar, and the dates we found back in January are now listed as “San Diego Comic Con 2016”. So, consider that one confirmed.

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[PREVIOUS] We barely know anything yet about San Diego Comic Con 2015, and we certainly know even less about San Diego Comic-Con 2016. But we might have just gotten our first peek of information about the convention happening next summer.

Although Comic-Con International has not yet made an official announcement for San Diego Comic-Con’s 2016 dates — which is also currently the last contracted year that the convention will be held in San Diego at all, although San Diego officials seem hopeful that an agreement can be reached through 2018 — there are several signs which point toward 2016 dates running from July 21-24, with Preview Night being held on Wednesday, July 20.

A recent U-T San Diego article detailed San Diego’s ongoing efforts to bring the 2016 Major League Baseball All-Star Game to San Diego in 2016. The game is locked in for July 12, and if San Diego is chosen as the host city of the major event, Joe Terzi, chief executive of the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau, told U-T San Diego that the event would feature four days of related activities in the city. That’s five total days of programming, none of which are moveable.

“We thought about [moving Comic-Con] … but we didn’t feel it was appropriate to try to do that,” Terzi told U-T San Diego. “Their attendees are such a unique group that they don’t take well to change. They plan their year around this event.”

Instead, since the game is expected to draw some 60,000 tourists and presumably take up much of the available hotel and parking options downtown, the Bureau has had to shuffle around other downtown events in case they are chosen as the host city. One of those events is the Environmental Systems Research Institute’s annual conference, which was originally slated to hold its event downtown at the San Diego Convention Center on July 11-15, 2016. The San Diego Convention Center’s website still reflects this, and if another city is chosen to host the MLB All-Star Game, ERSI will get to keep those original dates.

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But here’s where it gets interesting. The U-T San Diego article states that, “Terzi said concerns about conflicts prompted officials to explore moving Comic-Con, which wouldn’t overlap with All-Star festivities in 2016 but which is scheduled to begin just a few days after.”

Comic-Con International is held annually on a Wednesday – Sunday, and the Environmental Systems Research Institute’s ending date of Friday, July 15, 2016, knocks that week out completely. That would make the following week — July 20 – 24 — the most likely candidate.

And, to top that off, the San Diego Convention Center currently lists July 21 – 24 as a “Private Event” with an attendance size of 130,000 (the convention center’s site never lists the Wednesday date for Comic-Con, explaining why it’s a day “short”).

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A representative for the San Diego Convention Center could only tell us that per their standard contract agreement, thy aren’t permitted to release the name of events on their calendar labeled “Private Event”. As of press time, representatives at Comic-Con International could not be reached for comment.

You can view all of the San Diego Convention Center’s currently scheduled 2016 events on their calendar.

It’s not a home run, but it sounds like we just might have our San Diego Comic-Con 2016 dates. Start planning accordingly.

Are you excited about having San Diego Comic-Con 2016 dates? Let us know in the comments.

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