WrestleCon updated its 2015 status for their annual event on Wrestlemania weekend, with this year’s scheduled for the San Francisco Bay Area for Wrestlemania 31.
We have reported in the past that WWE was looking to block independent promoters and conventions from running events on the same weekend, and it looks like they have had some effect.
WrestleCon will be held in San Jose, California on March 27th and 28th, which is the two days before Wrestlemania 31 on March 29th.
WrestleCon posted the following release:
Despite the numerous challenges presented by property restrictions, we wanted to let everybody know that we’re going to be back next year. Our event will take place in San Jose, CA and will be held on Friday March 27th and Saturday March 28th.
As many of your know, the WWE imposed restrictions on all buildings that are owned by the city of San Jose and Santa Clara. They also imposed non-competes with all the hotel chains that are utilized by the WWE as a corporate client (which is most of the major chains). We certainly understand WWE’s desire to eliminate all non-WWE events from the area, and justifiably don’t share our vision that Mania weekend has turned into a destination to see wrestling/meet wrestlers beyond the scope of their current WWE Universe. Therefore, we are placed in a position to either move the event outside of the “center of the action” or find a property that has no restrictions and limitations placed upon it. Since we realize that we’re nothing more than a compliment to the WWE events, we felt that location was the most important aspect to our event and have sacrificed options that are larger and more typical of our past events in favor of a smaller location that is centrally located.
Our host hotel will be the San Jose Garden Airport, as well as another hotel soon to be announced that are offering special rates for Wrestlecon. These hotels were chosen because of their fantastic location and their access to the light rail system that connects all the WWE events during the weekend.
We learned several things from last year that will be corrected:
1. There will be no registration/check-in process this year. Tickets will be either electronically issued/scanned or needed credentials will be shipped in advance.
2. All featured guests will be in a separate area than the main space to alleviate the congestion in the main room.
3. There will be maps distributed both online and at the event signifying the locations of all the talent/signings.
4. RG Promotions is banned from all future WrestleCon events. Not only did they fail to live up to their obligations as a vendor at the event, they failed to properly address issues after the event.
5. “Walk up” Admission tickets will be capped and potentially eliminated entirely. WE realize that trying to get both advance ticket holders and these walk up customers through the doors at the same time created unnecessary chaos.
What we know for sure at this point:
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WE will have hotel partners that have offered a $124 rate that will be ready to book within the next few days. One of these two hotels will be the location of the WrestleCon event.
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There will be at least one live wrestling event (likely held on Saturday night going up against the Hall of Fame). We are still searching for a partner to hold a second, stand alone event on Friday night.
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We will return a WrestleCon superticket option on both Friday and Saturday that has 10+ wrestlers in a single line for photo ops/autographs during a designated time period. Entry to the superticket will be done in numerical order, so you can enter the line anytime your number is “ready”.
