Relive Anime & Manga Events

279 anime & manga events the community showed up for — relive the night, then catch the next one.

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Anime Night Mart — Free Anime Market at Moreno Valley Mall (September 2026)

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Anime Night Mart — Free Anime Market at Moreno Valley Mall (September 2026)

Sep 12, 2026 Moreno Valley Mall, 22500 Town Cir…

The artist alley table has prints of your exact comfort character. The vendor next to it is selling enamel pins you didn't know existed but now can't leave without. This isn't a mall event — it's a gathering. Anime Night Mart takes over Moreno Valley Mall for two days of vendor booths, cosplay meetups, gaming stations, live performances, and raffles — all free, all ages. This is the Inland Empire's own anime night market, built for the crowd that knows their way around a convention floor but doesn't need one to have a good time. The vendors bring fan art, plushies, wall scrolls, and treasures from corners of fandom you forgot you loved. The cosplay corner fills with people who spent weeks building something they'll wear for six hours and cherish every second of it. The energy is warm and nerdy and specific. You'll recognize people by their shirts before you know their names. You'll leave with a bag full of things you'll never explain to anyone who wasn't there — and that's exactly how it's supposed to work. September 12-13, 2026. Moreno Valley Mall. Free admission. All ages.

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Dragon Con 2026 — Atlanta, GA

Sep 3 – Sep 7, 2026 From $180 Marriott Marquis Atlanta, 265 Peac…

Dragon Con fills five hotels in downtown Atlanta simultaneously over Labor Day weekend. The Saturday parade shuts down streets. Ninety thousand people across five days — the largest multi-genre fan convention in the United States. The hotel structure is part of the experience. Dragon Con takes over the Marriott Marquis, Hilton, Hyatt, Westin, Sheraton, and AmericasMart simultaneously — connected by skywalks, each with its own programming and atmosphere. The Marriott atrium, famous for its multi-story interior balconies, fills with costumes and spectators until 4am. The Hyatt has the gaming rooms. The parade through downtown Atlanta on Saturday morning, 90,000 people in costume marching through the streets, is a public event that draws spectators who've never bought a badge. Dragon Con is worth it for science fiction and fantasy fans who want density over prestige. The programming is fan-driven and runs across 70+ tracks simultaneously: Star Trek, Star Wars, gaming, anime, horror, costuming, comics, tabletop RPG. You will not see the mainstream film studio Hall H style announcements that SDCC gets, but you will find panels and conversations led by creators and experts who are genuinely passionate rather than promotional. The celebrity guest list — actors, authors, musicians, artists — is extensive and accessible. Practical notes: Pre-register well before the event; badges for Labor Day weekend routinely sell out. The connected hotel system means everything is walkable in climate-controlled comfort — a feature in Atlanta in September. Book hotel rooms in the official block early; they sell in January. The Dragon Con parade requires no badge and is worth attending on its own. Atlanta, Georgia. September 3–7, 2026. Dragon Con was founded in 1987 by a group of Atlanta gaming enthusiasts and has never been acquired or corporate-ized. That independence is visible in how it runs: the programming is fan-proposed and fan-led, the celebrity guest selection reflects genuine fan interest rather than studio promotion schedules, and the convention's identity is remarkably consistent despite 90,000 attendees. This is rare at events of this scale. Dragon Con remains, after nearly four decades, a fan convention that happens to be enormous.

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SacAnime Summer 2026 – Sacramento

Sep 4 – Sep 6, 2026 SAFE Credit Union Convention Cente…

Between Anime Expo in July and the fall circuit in October, there is a gap in the West Coast calendar - and this is the con that fills it, the reason SoCal fans make the road trip north over Labor Day weekend. Consistently one of the best-organized regional anime conventions on the coast, it has built its name on accessible, community-first programming. It runs three days across multiple spaces including the main convention hall, Memorial Auditorium, and the Hyatt Ballroom: guest panels, voice actor signings, cosplay competitions, gaming rooms, a dealer hall, an artist alley, and late-night programming that runs well past midnight. Guest lineups typically include English and Japanese voice actors, animation industry professionals, and cosplay celebrities. Sacramento is about six hours from San Diego and five and a half from Los Angeles - a realistic Labor Day road trip. The convention center sits downtown, walkable from hotels along the K Street corridor, and for SoCal fans who already do Anime Expo and FanimeCon, this typically offers more accessible crowds and shorter signing lines than the larger cons. SAFE Credit Union Convention Center, Sacramento, September 4-6, 2026.

Chicago Jazz Festival 2026 — Chicago, IL

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Chicago Jazz Festival 2026 — Chicago, IL

Sep 3 – Sep 6, 2026 Millennium Park, 201 E Randolph St…

Free entry removes the one thing that usually stops you - the commitment - and then Frank Gehry's sculptural steel bandshell and the great lawn it frames take care of the rest. For four September days, one of the most beautiful outdoor music venues in the world hosts a festival-level jazz lineup in the city that helped define the form. Experiencing the Pritzker Pavilion with that kind of programming, surrounded by Chicago's skyline with the Art Institute across the street, registers as a kind of improbable generosity. The festival spans the entire spectrum of jazz - traditional swing and bebop through fusion, Afrobeat, and avant-garde experimental - and first-timers regularly end up watching someone they had never heard of and leaving with a new lifelong obsession. That is the mechanism: free entry means you can leave any set that does not land and arrive late to one that has already started, without ever having made a mistake. The festival rewards wandering. It rewards the person who shows up not knowing what to expect and stays far longer than planned. Chicago in early September is reliably excellent festival weather - days in the 70s, cooler evenings, no significant rain risk. The Pritzker lawn fills up for headliners, so earlier arrival helps for the best viewing spots. The Chicago Cultural Center venues are free standing-room performances, so arrive early for the intimate sets. Millennium Park's food vendors and the surrounding Loop restaurants are excellent, and the whole festival is accessible by CTA transit from anywhere in the city. This is a genuinely rare category of American cultural institution: a festival that big that asks nothing of you - no ticket, no wristband, no logistical commitment, just show up and participate in the most free version of what this city does best. Jazz is Chicago's music the way blues is Mississippi's or country is Nashville's, and the festival is the city taking that inheritance seriously and offering it to anyone who arrives. The Chicago Jazz Festival takes place at Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park, Chicago, IL. Free admission.

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Anime San Diego 2026

Sep 5 – Sep 6, 2026 San Diego Convention Center, 111 W…

Nobody wanders into a convention's first year. The people who show up are believers — the ones who wanted in before anyone could tell them what it would become — and that is why a first edition feels different from the inside than an established show ever will. San Diego is getting an anime convention that belongs to this city specifically, three hours down the freeway from the one everybody already knows. Two days of panels, cosplay, and a vendor floor set differently, because the exhibitors who booked a first-year show chose it on purpose. That choice travels. You can hear it in how people talk to each other in line. The Convention Center on Harbor Drive, in September, when the weather here is at its best. Saturday is the day to pick if you can only make one, and tickets are at animesandiego.com. Text this to whoever you would have gone to your first con with.

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Tampa Bay Comic Con 2026 — Tampa, FL

Sep 4 – Sep 6, 2026 Tampa Convention Center, 333 S Fra…

The Southeast built this weekend to answer a specific ache — the annual pang of SDCC envy from the wrong side of the country. Over Labor Day weekend, 75,000 people fill the Tampa Convention Center for every comic and pop culture genre under one roof - and for the East Coast outside New York, this is the one. The floor is enormous and overwhelming in the best possible way. The guest list runs three tiers: Hollywood actors from properties people grew up on, comic industry legends, and independent creators who set up Artist Alley as their primary annual market. The celebrity photo ops and autograph queues are well-organized, which is not always true at conventions this size. And the cosplay is extraordinary - TBCC has built a reputation as one of the top cosplay destinations in the Southeast, and the Saturday costume contest is a legitimate event in its own right. This is for the fan who wants the full convention experience - celebrity access, comic industry presence, Artist Alley depth, panel programming - without flying to San Diego or navigating New York. If you are in Florida, the Southeast, or anywhere on the East Coast outside the city, TBCC is the answer, and the Labor Day timing makes it a natural end-of-summer anchor. A few things worth knowing before you go: single-day tickets exist, but weekend passes sell at a real discount and most one-day buyers wish they had bought three. The Convention Center sits on the Tampa Riverwalk - an easy ride from downtown hotels, difficult to park near, worth planning around. Saturday is the fullest day; Sunday is noticeably more relaxed with shorter autograph queues. Bring cash for Artist Alley, since the independent creators who make the floor special tend to run cash-only or Square setups. What TBCC ultimately proves is that the Southeast has a fan community rivaling any market in the country. A convention at 75,000 attendees should require a city like New York or Los Angeles, and it happens in Tampa every year. That is not a small thing. It is the proof that the culture is everywhere, not just concentrated on the coasts.

Hidden Leaf After Dark — Anime San Diego Official After-Party

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Hidden Leaf After Dark — Anime San Diego Official After-Party

Sep 5, 2026 San Diego Convention Center, 111 W…

The convention floor closes. The lights come up. You're standing in a hallway holding a prop sword and a bag of prints, and every cell in your body is saying: not yet. Hidden Leaf After Dark is the official Anime San Diego after-party — the room where the energy that built all day doesn't have to stop. Five DJs take the Convention Center stage after the panels end, spinning anime anthems remixed for a crowd that already knows every word. The cosplays stay on. The dance floor fills with people who spent the day in artist alley and are now discovering each other's moves. Shonen Riot produces this alongside Anime San Diego, so the handoff is seamless — same community, different mode. You don't need a convention badge to attend. The only thing you need is the specific feeling that the day wasn't enough. Friday, September 5, 2026. Doors 8:30 PM. San Diego Convention Center. 18+. Tickets $29.51.

Itasha & Livery Expo 2026 — Anime Car Culture at OC Fair

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Itasha & Livery Expo 2026 — Anime Car Culture at OC Fair

Sep 5, 2026 OC Fair & Event Center, 88 Fair Dr…

Full-panel artwork wrapped across an entire vehicle is called itasha — literally 'painful car' — and the people who do it made that joke about themselves long before anyone else got the chance. Painful to look at. Painful to explain to your father. Painful to the wallet. They are not anime fans who happen to drive, and they are not car people who happen to watch anime. They are both, all the way down, running build accounts and servers that document every panel and every repaint. For years the only shows matching what they saw coming out of Akihabara were on the wrong side of the Pacific. The floor gathers builds from across Southern California, judged on full wraps, partials, theme interpretation, and best in show, with wrap studios and JDM parts sellers along the walls. Costa Mesa, one Saturday, straight off the freeway. Bring a camera, and bring the friend whose car is still in primer. This is where they decide.

Dub Club presents Clinton Fearon & Boogie Brown Band

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Dub Club presents Clinton Fearon & Boogie Brown Band

Sep 4, 2026 $25+ Echoplex, 1154 Glendale Blvd, Los …

Some voices carry the whole history of a genre in them, and Clinton Fearon's is one: the former bassist and singer of the Gladiators, a living link to the golden age of roots reggae, still touring with a warmth and message that stops rooms cold. When he brings the Boogie Brown Band to LA's long-running Dub Club, it's a rare chance to hear real, deep, conscious roots reggae from a master, in the sweaty, bass-heavy Echoplex where the city's reggae faithful gather. Friday, September 4, 2026, 9 PM, the Echoplex in Echo Park, 21+. Come for the sound-system culture, the outdoor bleachers, the skanking crowd, and a legend who still means every word. Bring someone who needs their spirit lifted. This is roots reggae the way it's meant to be felt, in a hidden room that has kept the flame lit for 25 years.

Party Plus Ultra — Anime Rave at Mission Inn, Riverside

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Party Plus Ultra — Anime Rave at Mission Inn, Riverside

Aug 29, 2026 Mission Inn Hotel, 3649 Mission In…

You've been watching the same show for six months. You've read every theory thread. You've sent the opening theme to three people who didn't ask for it. And now you need to be in a room where everyone else did the same thing. Party Plus Ultra is Shonen Riot's standalone anime rave — not a convention afterparty this time, but the main event. The Mission Inn in Riverside becomes the venue: five DJs (Chuck None, Kahn Artest, Hiero, Kudo, and Ohyea) spinning anime anthems and club remixes under the arches of one of California's most absurdly beautiful hotels. Cosplay welcome. Anime-themed drinks. Photo ops. And a dance floor full of people who can identify an opening by the first three notes. Shonen Riot runs the conventions behind Anime San Diego, Anime Riverside, Anime Pasadena, and Anime Las Vegas. This is the team that already knows how to pack a room with people who share a very specific frequency. Party Plus Ultra is that frequency, amplified, without the panel schedule. 18+. Doors 7 PM. Mission Inn Hotel, 3649 Mission Inn Ave, Riverside, CA 92501. Tickets at partyplusultra.com.

SoCal Pinball League — Summer Series 2026

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SoCal Pinball League — Summer Series 2026

May 23 – Aug 29, 2026 Various venues, Los Angeles County…

The Southern California Pinball League runs competitive pinball tournaments throughout the summer at rotating venues across the Los Angeles and Orange County areas, offering IFPA-sanctioned competition that counts toward world ranking points and the SoCal circuit standings. The Summer Series format typically runs 6-8 events between May and August, with venues rotating through the established pinball locations of Southern California: Full Tilt in North Park, Pins and Needles in Los Feliz, Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda (visiting events), 82 Bar in Hollywood, and hobbyist host locations where private collectors make their machines available for competition. Competitive pinball at the SoCal League level is matchplay format: players face a random opponent each round on a randomly selected machine, accumulating match wins across the tournament. The format rewards machine versatility — knowing current Stern productions, classic 1990s WMS games, and vintage electromechanical tables equally is an advantage that specialists in any single era don't possess. The league welcomes players at all skill levels. If you know what a multiball is and can drain intentionally, you have enough foundation to participate in a league event. The regulars are uniformly welcoming to newcomers and the post-event gatherings at the host venues extend the experience well beyond the competition itself. Check the IFPA Southern California player directory and the SoCal Pinball League social channels for the 2026 Summer Series schedule, venues, and registration requirements.

ONE PIECE Fest 2026 — Los Angeles (COSM LA)

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ONE PIECE Fest 2026 — Los Angeles (COSM LA)

Aug 25 – Aug 26, 2026 COSM Los Angeles, Inglewood, CA

For ten years you have been waiting on Elbaph. Mostly alone — a chapter a week, on a phone, late, inside a story you have been reading for twenty-seven years. Toei built a room for it. An 87-foot LED dome where the floor and the ceiling and every wall move at once, themed to the arc happening right now instead of one that already ended. First production of its kind in North America. People who went to the Tokyo edition keep failing to describe it and landing in the same place: the closest anyone has come to standing on the Grand Line. Entry is by lottery, roughly 7,000 across both days, and Discord servers have organized group registrations since the announcement. There is no door to walk up to. COSM Los Angeles, 777 Prairie Ave, Inglewood. August 25-26, 2026. Sessions 10am-2pm and 4pm-8pm. $109 per pair via Ticketmaster after lottery notification. Send this to whoever you have been theorizing with for the last decade.

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K-PLAY! FEST Orange County 2026

Aug 22 – Aug 24, 2026 40.00 800 W Katella Ave, Anaheim, CA 928…

One pass opens two doors, and most people do not realize it until they are already inside — the K-pop floor and the anime convention are running in the same building on the same days, and your wristband works in both. So the day splits strangely and wonderfully: a dance competition, then an artist alley, then a K-beauty booth, then somebody's cosplay contest, then back across the hall for a K-drama screening. Touring acts play the main stage both days. There are merch drops, signed-album lines, fan photo areas, and Q&As where somebody always asks the question the whole room was too nervous to ask. General admission covers the festival floor; the concert stage is its own ticket. It takes over the Anaheim Convention Center on Katella, walkable from the transit center, with Disneyland close enough to stretch the whole thing into a weekend. Send it to the friend who has been saving an outfit for exactly this and has nowhere to wear it.

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Anime NYC 2026 - New York, NY

Aug 20 – Aug 23, 2026 Jacob K. Javits Convention Center,…

The Javits Center in August. Four days, 150,000 attendees — the largest anime convention on the East Coast. It started in 2017 as a regional alternative to AX and became something much larger. The Javits Center in August feels like a contained version of the anime internet made physical. Cosplay is everywhere and serious -- the craftsmanship people bring to their costumes is a form of artistic expression that deserves its own category. The exhibition hall has major publishers like Crunchyroll, Yen Press, and Nakama Press launching titles; creator meet-and-greets and autograph lotteries for guests like Yuji Kaku of Jujutsu Kaisen fill up in hours. Over 150 hours of programming runs simultaneously across panels, screenings, and Q-and-A sessions with creators. The New York City setting amplifies everything -- the crowd has NYC energy, the restaurants outside are excellent, and the convention benefits from the cultural infrastructure of the country's most connected city. Anime NYC is worth it for anyone serious about anime or manga culture. For East Coast fans who have not made the trip to Anime Expo in Los Angeles, this is the domestic pilgrimage -- the place where the industry treats you as a primary audience rather than a secondary market. For fans of specific titles, the autograph lotteries for major creators are reasons unto themselves. The 2026 edition adds a Family Zone presented by Scholastic and a Kids Sunday ticket for ages 6 to 12 -- signaling the generational shift already underway. This is not for people who want a casual festival atmosphere. It is for people who know their fandoms, track release schedules, and understand why certain announcements matter. Badge prices increase after May 31 -- purchase now if you are going. Bring a refillable water bottle; drinks inside run $4 and up with free fill stations throughout the Javits. Skip the Javits Starbucks and use the Hudson Yards location a short walk away. Walk Artist Alley and the Exhibition Hall completely once without buying -- collect business cards, compare prices, note everything -- then return to purchase. Autograph lotteries for top guests fill fast; register the moment they open. Bathrooms near the Expo Floor and Artist Alley get congested by midday; plan accordingly. Anime NYC's rise to East Coast dominance reflects something real: anime is no longer a niche import. It is one of the primary storytelling languages of a generation that grew up watching Naruto, reading One Piece, and building identities around the worlds attached to those stories. Anime NYC is where that generation convenes, where Japanese creators recognize their American audience in person, and where the next phase of the culture gets seeded. The Family Zone added in 2026 signals what is already happening: this is a mainstream cultural institution that happens to be run by and for people who care deeply about the craft. Badges at animenyc.com.

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Anime Impulse Orange County 2026

Aug 22 – Aug 23, 2026 Anaheim Convention Center, 800 W K…

An importer unrolls something that circulates at exactly these shows and nowhere else, and two tables down an artist is selling work she made specifically for this weekend. Neither thing exists on Amazon. That is the whole reason to come. It runs less like a convention than a market: merch, fan art, imported goods, tiny runs that are gone by afternoon, spread across two full days in a hall large enough to let it breathe. The move is to split it. Saturday for the rush, Sunday for the second pass, when the lines shorten and an artist has time to tell you what a piece actually is. Sunday is where people find the thing still framed on their wall years later. Anaheim Convention Center on West Katella Avenue, a straight run off the 5 or the 57, admission through animeimpulse.com. Bring the friend whose wall is running out of room.

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Collectors Expo Orange County 2026

Aug 22 – Aug 23, 2026 Anaheim Convention Center, 800 Wes…

You know the type. Keeps a separate folder for the cards they will never sell, can tell you what a binder smells like, texts one specific friend the second a set drops. For years that person has driven to a different little shop for every game they love — Pokemon one weekend, One Piece the next, Lorcana somewhere across town. This is the weekend all of it lands in the same building. Pokemon, One Piece, Riftbound, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Lorcana and Magic share one convention floor: vendors deep enough to turn up the card you have been hunting for years, tables to trade and play, and the rare overlap where competitive grinders and vintage collectors finally walk the same aisles. Part flea market, part reunion, part the dig you have been putting off. Anaheim Convention Center, 800 West Katella Avenue. If you already know what a good pull feels like in your chest, nobody has to talk you into this one.

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IchibanCon San Diego 2026

Aug 22 – Aug 23, 2026 Sheraton Mission Valley, 1433 Cami…

Some conventions are so big they stop being a gathering and start being an airport. This is the opposite kind on purpose — a con at the scale where you can actually reach the artist alley, where the panels have real conversation instead of a mic line a hundred deep, and where the cosplay competition happens in a room whose audience actually knows the characters you're dressed as. The hotel setting is the whole design. You move through connected ballrooms and corridors instead of a convention center the size of a small town, the density is right, and the signing lines are short enough that the guests exist as people you can actually talk to. The vendor hall still covers everything from imported figures to local fan art — it just does it at a human scale. Doing the small local convention well is harder than it looks, and this one has quietly built a reputation for it. Sheraton Mission Valley, 1433 Camino Del Rio S — August 22–23. San Diego's at its best outside in August, and inside it's the specific warmth of a community that chose to be in one room together. Badge options and the guest list at IchibanCon's site as the date nears.

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So-Cal Cosplay Shoot — Old Town SD

Aug 23, 2026 Free Old Town San Diego, CA 92110

A Day of the Dead build against the hacienda adobe stops looking like a costume and starts looking like a gallery image - Old Town does that to whatever walks through it. The So-Cal Cosplay Shoot uses San Diego's most atmospheric neighborhood as a backdrop that earns every costume: the adobe buildings, the Mexican heritage architecture, the period-accurate storefronts, the Bazaar del Mundo. The environment reads as historically specific in a way that gives character cosplay, period builds, and fantasy armor completely different and equally compelling backgrounds - a fantasy costume against the mission architecture photographs like nowhere else in San Diego. Any fandom, any build. Photographers with gear are welcome. August in Old Town runs warm, so plan for the heat in the early afternoon and the light in the late afternoon, when the adobe walls go golden and every shot becomes worth taking. Old Town San Diego, CA 92110. August 23rd. Free. Follow @socosplayscene on Instagram for the exact gather point and start time.

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