San Diego Comic-Con International has announced that the annual comic book and pop-culture convention will remain in its native city for at least five more years, through 2015.

Held in the city's seaside convention center since it was built in 1991, Comic-Con sold out for the first time in 2007, and has reached a self-imposed attendance ceiling of 125,000 every year since. The convention's current lease with the city was due to expire in 2012, and the inability to accommodate more people led convention organizers to field bids from larger convention centers in Los Angeles and Anaheim, Calif. This decision, however, keeps Comic-Con in San Diego through at least 2015.

Comic-Con spokesman David Glanzer said: "We've always had a desire to stay in San Diego, and we had three amazing proposals. It was obviously a very difficult decision, one born out by the amount of time it's taken to make that decision. But in the end San Diego was able to address a lot of our concerns."

Comic-Con reportedly is worth more than $160-million annually to the San Diego region.