Comic-Con Museum Set To Open in November

The San Diego Comic Convention has announced plans to open the Comic-Con Museum in Balboa Park. The purveyors of Comic-Con International: San Diego announced the start of construction on the new Comic-Con Museum and that the opening and daily operations will begin on November 26th. The opening event will take place alongside Comic-Con Special Edition, a smaller fall version of the Comic-Con convention that usually takes place in San Diego during the summer. The Comic-Con Museum offers exhibits, art, and images connected to comics and related popular culture and will also serve as a meeting place for the comics and pop culture fan community.

"Comic-Con may be a San Diego institution, but people from around the world have eagerly anticipated this year-round home to celebrate the popular arts they love," San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria said in a press release. "With the Museum's construction underway, we're closer than ever to welcoming a global audience to get a taste of the Comic-Con experience in the middle of our City's crown jewel, Balboa Park."

Two classrooms are scheduled to open in the Museum's educational center. One is the Cox Innovation Lab. Cox Communication, a cable television/telecommunications company, contributed $175,000 to create the lab.

"The Comic-Con Museum will be a fabulous addition to Balboa Park," said Ingo Hentschel, Senior Vice President and Region Manager for Cox Communications. "We're excited that the Cox Innovation Lab will be part of this amazing project to showcase innovation and technology in an educational setting for local youth."

"We are eager to begin renovation on the old Federal Building and are excited to join the other esteemed museums in what is often regarded as the cultural heart of San Diego," said David Glanzer, a spokesperson for the San Diego Comic Convention nonprofit organization.

According to the press release, the Museum will continue to expand its interior display space and educational area over the next several months leading to a grand opening scheduled for July 2022. SDCC's primary income stream is its annual conventions, but those have not occurred since 2019 due to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.

"The consequences of COVID-19 have had its effect on SDCC, despite those challenges, the organization is moving forward with its promised construction and opening of the Comic-Con Museum," said Glanzer. "For a variety of reasons, chief among them the continuing global crisis, fundraising for the Museum is not at the level we would have hoped."

The November opening is the museum's first phase, as development continues in the coming months and years. The opening of all three floors of the museum will take place in July 2022.

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