What Are The Good Cons To Go To?

[The Sweatshop]

My go to list of cons -

Comic book / sci fi related Cons

LA Comic Con
Wondercon
San Diego Comic Con (if you can get in)
Star Wars Celebration
D23 (getting better but still not amazing yet)
New York Comic Con
Dragoncon
C2E2
ACE Comic Con

Anime Cons

A-kon
Anime Weekend Atlanta
Fanime
Anime Expo (a little too corporate these days)
Sakura-con
Anime Los Angeles (been on the decline recently)

I’d add Saboten Con in Phoenix that’s hosted in the first week of September. It is easily my favorite weekend of the year and it’s in its golden era right now. It’s a quarter of the size of Phoenix Fan Fusion, but it’s management team is seasoned and the handle the madness with elegance and grace. It’s currently held in the Sheraton in downtown, and though I live in Phoenix, I continue to reserve a room. It’s usually miserable outside come con season, but saboten is held on the second and third floor with plenty of panel rooms for its size, concert hall for performances and perfect sized vendor hall. The simple fact that I get my room in the same hotel as the event, I never have to head outside into the blistering heat if I don’t wish to. Another great aspect is the con slows down around 12 and everyone filters into the lobby to take advantage of the bar and meet other con goers. Even celebrities show up after hours and I’ve had much more honest meetings with genuinely awesome people there where the constrictions of the con don’t allow. If there are specific aspects that you look for in a con, let me know and I’ll let you know if the Arizona cons check that box.

 

[ScourgiousJinx]

Which one? Star Wars Celebration Anaheim? Star Wars Celebration Europe?

I'd still vote for Celebration Europe for all of the reasons I mentioned. Infinitely better experience.

 

[Dr Jones Sr]

I'm also in Southern California, so I have a local bias. Another bias is that I don't care about celebrity photo-ops or signings. Harrison Ford signed my napkin for free; that's the most I'll pay for a celebrity signature.

I won't wait in a long line to get into a celebrity panel or to get special merchandise. I'm not a collector.

I'm a cosplayer and that's my main focus. I will say that the celebrities appearing at a Con can have a significant impact on the cosplay scene; I was at one Con where a Stranger Things star was appearing and there was a massive amount of ST cosplaying.

Here are Cons I've been to with my mini-reviews:

Emerald City CC: A favourite. Very well-run. The big celebrities were in the main room so everyone could see them! How brilliant is that? And huge TV screens were all over so that you could see them anywhere you were.

FanX Salt Lake City: Loved it. Some amazing intense cosplay. I attended the first post-Covid FanX and in spite of the hiatus it was well-run. Super convenient, I stayed at a hotel literally across the street. There were two breweries within easy walking distance (I'm a craft-beer person).

Phoenix Fan Fusion: One of my favourites. It's no longer held in the middle of summer! Now it's Memorial Day Weekend. (Should be in winter, no?) Yes I was there waiting outside in 114f temps and the soles melted off my shoes, but once inside they have the AC cranked up to Winterfell.

Los Angeles Anime Expo: My longest-running event, been going over a dozen years due to my Anime-fan daughter. (She introduced me to cosplay.) This has the best cosplay of any Con I've attended, though of course largely Anime. It's by far the worst-run event. Every year it feels like the people in charge have never done a Con before. At some point they said "Hey, let's mail out the badges like the well-run Cons do!" but then they made everybody, badges or not, wait in the same super long 6-hour line. On the plus side they have an unusually lenient prop weapons policy.

WonderCon: I'm biased; I work across the street at Disneyland, and I love just being able to walk to a Con. It has a big outdoor area with fountains and steps giving the best huge group-photo place I've seen.

Star Wars Celebration: Also just across the street this year! I was amazed how much LESS Star Wars merchandise there was, compared to a normal Con. This event is run by Disney so it's just booths displaying things available, or soon to be available, in the Disney parks, and booths displaying costumes from upcoming Disney films and TV programmes. I couldn't find a single booth selling lightsabres, or Jedi robes, or anything else related to Star Wars. Please Disney let in outside people selling Star Wars related things!

San Diego Comic Con: Very well run; no lines to get in, they just open all the doors and in you go. In spite of being in Southern California this was my first year attending. I know it's the first post-Covid SDCC and I should cut it some slack, but I was underwhelmed. It was pretty much like the other Cons, but harder to get to and much less cosplay. All in all one of my least favourite Cons. A cool feature is the way that a local street lined with restaurants and pubs T-bones into the Convention Centre, all closed to vehicular traffic, creating a huge street party vibe.

Monsterpalooza: A very special Con! It has a unique vibe, being a sort of Con but also a film industry Trade Show, full of firms who do makeup, prosthetics, props, etc for the film industry displaying their wares and doing all-day makeup demonstrations.

Los Angeles Comic Con (AKA Comikaze) A nice largish Con with plenty of cosplay, very well run. It used to be Halloween weekend but it's in December this year.

Long Beach Comic Con and Long Beach Comic Expo: smaller events, good if you don't want big crowds and long lines. It has a good place for people with TV/film cars to display them.

 

[thorr97]

I'm also in Southern California, so I have a local bias. Another bias is that I don't care about celebrity photo-ops or signings. Harrison Ford signed my napkin for free; that's the most I'll pay for a celebrity signature.

I won't wait in a long line to get into a celebrity panel or to get special merchandise. I'm not a collector.

I'm a cosplayer and that's my main focus. I will say that the celebrities appearing at a Con can have a significant impact on the cosplay scene; I was at one Con where a Stranger Things star was appearing and there was a massive amount of ST cosplaying.

Here are Cons I've been to with my mini-reviews:

Emerald City CC: A favourite. Very well-run. The big celebrities were in the main room so everyone could see them! How brilliant is that? And huge TV screens were all over so that you could see them anywhere you were.

FanX Salt Lake City: Loved it. Some amazing intense cosplay. I attended the first post-Covid FanX and in spite of the hiatus it was well-run. Super convenient, I stayed at a hotel literally across the street. There were two breweries within easy walking distance (I'm a craft-beer person).

Phoenix Fan Fusion: One of my favourites. It's no longer held in the middle of summer! Now it's Memorial Day Weekend. (Should be in winter, no?) Yes I was there waiting outside in 114f temps and the soles melted off my shoes, but once inside they have the AC cranked up to Winterfell.

Los Angeles Anime Expo: My longest-running event, been going over a dozen years due to my Anime-fan daughter. (She introduced me to cosplay.) This has the best cosplay of any Con I've attended, though of course largely Anime. It's by far the worst-run event. Every year it feels like the people in charge have never done a Con before. At some point they said "Hey, let's mail out the badges like the well-run Cons do!" but then they made everybody, badges or not, wait in the same super long 6-hour line. On the plus side they have an unusually lenient prop weapons policy.

WonderCon: I'm biased; I work across the street at Disneyland, and I love just being able to walk to a Con. It has a big outdoor area with fountains and steps giving the best huge group-photo place I've seen.

Star Wars Celebration: Also just across the street this year! I was amazed how much LESS Star Wars merchandise there was, compared to a normal Con. This event is run by Disney so it's just booths displaying things available, or soon to be available, in the Disney parks, and booths displaying costumes from upcoming Disney films and TV programmes. I couldn't find a single booth selling lightsabres, or Jedi robes, or anything else related to Star Wars. Please Disney let in outside people selling Star Wars related things!

San Digo Comic Con: Very well run; no lines to get in, they just open all the doors and in you go. In spite of being in Southern California this was my first year attending. I know it's the first post-Covid SDCC and I should cut it some slack, but I was underwhelmed. It was pretty much like the other Cons, but harder to get to and much less cosplay. All in all one of my least favourite Cons. A cool feature is the way that a local street lined with restaurants and pubs T-bones into the Convention Centre, all closed to vehicular traffic, creating a huge street party vibe.

Monsterpalooza: A very special Con! It has a unique vibe, being a sort of Con but also a film industry Trade Show, full of firms who do makeup, prosthetics, props, etc for the film industry displaying their wares and doing all-day makeup demonstrations.

Los Angeles Comic Con (AKA Comikaze) A nice largish Con with plenty of cosplay, very well run. It used to be Halloween weekend but it's in December this year.

Long Beach Comic Con and Long Beach Comic Expo: smaller events, good if you don't want big crowds and long lines. It has a good place for people with TV/film cars to display them.

Thanks for this write-up it is exactly what I was looking for.

I just got back from FanX Salt Lake and agree entirely with your assessment. I was at the Radisson and until the Salt Lake City fire marshal declared the convention hall's north entrance to be exit only, it meant getting into the place was truly a breeze. Next year I might book into the Marriot which faces the main entrance to the convention hall.

The event itself was a blast for me in terms of cosplay. At day's end on each of the days I was tired enough that I didn't have the energy to go running 'round the neighborhood for any eateries. Perhaps next year!

I've been to LAX - the LA Anime Expo - twice. It's well run and well attended but is indeed all about its namesake - anime. Modern anime is mostly a mystery to me so there wasn't as much there of interest for me. And the cosplay was anime focused as well.

I like WonderCon as it much reminds me of San Diego Comic-con before that got impossibly huge and over-attended. You can still walk up to WonderCon and buy a pass to get in on that day. It's well run, well attended, but not impossibly packed together into a crowded mob. I'll be back again to next year's con.

Comic-con San Diego was a lot of fun for me this year. The first con since the Covidiocy, I think that drove its numbers down somewhat so the crowd wasn't as overwhelming. Which, for me, made it seem more like a regular WonderCon as to its overall feel. This year was also the first time I did any cosplay there so that was the start of it all now for me.

I've been to Long Beach Comic Con twice now; once prior to the Covidiocy and then just this year. Comparatively, it's an exceedingly small event. Just one smallish exhibit hall for all the vendors and only a couple of meeting rooms set up for the costume contest and the one programming track they had running. But, it was fun! The event had a far more "intimate" feeling to it and I made more cosplay connections there than I did at the much larger San Diego Con. This year I saw the cars they'd parked outside. But, with the temps running at 100F+ on both days and with my already being sweaty enough in my costume, I limited my outdoor time. Which is too bad as I woulda liked to have looked over the Herbie The Love Bug and the KITT cars that were there as well as the Pizza Planet Delivery Truck from the Pixar films.

Emerald City CC sounds like a worthy event and it's six months off so that's plenty of time to plan and make ready. Phoenix Fan Fusion happening three months after that would be an excellent bit of pacing. Plus, Phoenix is a drivable distance from LA. I've been to a Monsterpalooza a couple years back and agree with about its vibe. As it's exceptionally local, I'll be up there to it.

Los Angeles Comic Con is something I also plan on attending. The two months from now until then is just enough time for me to get my next bit of cosplay up and running for it. And I'm looking forward to that!

 

[Dr Jones Sr]

Cool!

It's so strange that we had such opposite experiences at LA Anime Expo.

I've been every year from the mid-2000's and every time it's had long lines to get in, ranging from two hours to six hours. Everybody has to go through one door and every year there's the same ten people to process 50,000 people.

Since for many years that was the only Con I'd been to I thought it was just the way Cons all are.

Then in the same year I attended three Cons in the same venue: LAX, WonderCon, and Comikaze, all held at the LA Convention Centre that year.

The score was:

WonderCon: wait to get in: zero. They had twice as many people as they needed to process everybody.

Comikaze: wait to get in: half an hour. They had adequate people to process everybody.

LA Anime Expo: wait to get in: four hours. They had the same 10 people they have every year to process everybody.

 

[thorr97]

Well, the first time I attended LAX the line was long but I chalked that up to buying my ticket at the door. The second time I did preregister and I recall things going a lot faster. It's been a while though and as that second time attending just confirmed that the event really wasn't for me, I didn't much focus on those details.

I've not been to Comikaze so I can't say one way or the other.

I do agree about WonderCon. Getting in was exceptionally smooth.