Rose City Comic Con

RCCC was founded by Ron Brister and his partner Paula Brister while on a road trip to San Diego Comic-Con in July 2011. The founders decided that Portland, Oregon, was missing an event that would captivate Portlanders with the same charm as San Diego and the northwest's favorite event, Emerald City Comic Con.^{[citation needed]}

From that road trip, after much discussion, and with a budget of less than $20,000, Ron and Paula Brister officially launched Rose City Comic Con in late summer of 2011 with the first event scheduled to run the following year in October 2012. After further research, however, the event was rescheduled to September in order to not be in between the Baltimore Comic-Con and the New York Comic Con (NYCC) that first year. The first official announcement of Rose City Comic Con took place at the Jet City Comics show.^{[citation needed]}

The first convention in 2012 was held at the DoubleTree hotel near the Lloyd Center. The organizers knew that the show just needed to break even in order for it to be a success.^{[citation needed]} They hoped for 750 attendees but realized the day before the first show that they would exceed that number.^{[citation needed]} The bigger problem was where to hold it the second year.^{[citation needed]}

The second annual event, held in 2013, was co-produced, co-funded, and co-organized by Emerald City Comic-Con,^[1] the largest comic book convention in the Pacific Northwest (which had seen significant expansion in the years prior). This transition moved RCCC to the Oregon Convention Center and took up halls A1, B, and C, totaling more than 120,000 square feet, and saw a 405% increase in attendance.^{[citation needed]} Since 2013, Emerald City Comic-Con and Rose City Comic-Con have been a Pacific Northwest partnership stationed in its two biggest cities: Seattle and Portland.

In late 2013, the Portland-based Stumptown Comics Fest, which focused on small-press comics, went "on hiatus" and entered an into an operating agreement with Rose City Comic Con.^[2]

In February 2017, the founders and partners agreed to sell a majority stake ownership to LeftField Media which had been founded by the former executives within ReedPop. The two founders stayed on with the business while the partners from Emerald City Comic Con separated.

Both Ron and Paula Brister stayed with the company until Paula departed just before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Ron stayed on in a consulting role only until early 2021.

The 2020 edition of the convention was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[3]