The announcement that the Game Manufacturer’s Association was moving its GAMA Trade Show in Las Vegas from April to March in 2010 (see “GTS Moves to March”) caused consternation among some game retailers that also carry comics.  The dates selected for GTS (March 22-26) overlap those for the ComicsPro Annual Membership Meeting in Memphis (March 25-27).  Although hardy road warriors might be able to attend both, it would require a trip longer than many retailers like to be away from their stores and a triangular itinerary.

GAMA Executive Director John Ward told ICv2 that the ComicsPro dates were a surprise and were not known to the GAMA staff or board when the decision to move to March was made.   “Since I got here, I’ve been hearing that we needed to move our dates away from Easter,” Ward told us, “and given what Bally’s had available we only had three choices:  keep our dates as they were, move them to the March dates we took, or cancel the show.  We took the March dates as the best alternative.”