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Mar 26 – Mar 28, 2027
Anaheim Convention Center, 800 W K…
Everyone has a friend who has spent a decade losing the badge lottery down in San Diego. This is where you take them.
Same organization runs it, same programming instincts, and a floor you can actually cross without a strategy meeting. Sixty thousand people rather than six figures, which is the difference between a convention and an evacuation drill. Publisher booths, artist alley, preview screenings, exclusive merch, and the Saturday-night masquerade, which is the flagship — costumes built over months, walked in front of a crowd that knows exactly how hard the seams were.
Because the badges are gettable and the halls are navigable, it has quietly become the best first convention a person can have. Families bring kids. First-timers stop being first-timers. The panel access is still real.
Anaheim Convention Center, three days in March, badges on sale months ahead with the good tiers moving fast.
Take the person who has been saying next year about the other one for a decade. End the streak.
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Vendors are still cutting boxes open when you walk in, and the exclusives are all sitting untouched on the shelf. Nobody has bought anything yet. The whole hall is laid out in front of you, quiet, and for a few hours you get to learn it before it becomes a scrum.
That is the reward for planning far enough ahead. Premium badge holders get the floor, the exclusives, and artist alley first — convention-only limited editions, publisher variants, and pieces from the most in-demand creators that are simply gone by Saturday afternoon. Programming is deliberately thin, a handful of panels and screenings, because the point is the floor: map it, mark what you want, buy before the competition arrives.
Access requires the full weekend badge; there is no single-day version of this evening. The Anaheim convention center, with shuttles and the rail station close.
The people who plan ahead have already decided. Decide alongside them.
Coming Soon
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The whole case for this convention is a math problem. You can actually reach three or four things you cared about in a single day. At the bigger show you pick one and spend the afternoon in a line for it.
Saturday is the peak — Hall B panels with talent in the room, the exhibit floor and artist alley at full activity, exclusive merch lines, and the masquerade final in the evening. That last one is the sleeper: judged on craftsmanship and performance, and the entrants treat the competition exactly as seriously as they treated the building of the costume. Same production ambition as the bigger convention, in a footprint you can cross without a strategy meeting.
Saturday single-day badges go first; the full convention runs the weekend in Anaheim.
Send it to the friend who has been sewing for months with nowhere to take it. This is the room.
Coming Soon
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Ask a veteran convention-goer which day they actually love and a surprising number will say the last one — when the urgency has drained out and what is left is a hall full of people who came for the same thing, quietly aware it is ending for another year.
Sunday is the undervalued badge. Crowds thin. Artist Alley cuts prices on whatever is left rather than haul it home. Vendors bundle things that were not bundled on Friday. Publishers discount remaining stock. The competition for panel seats evaporates and the convention finally becomes a social space instead of a logistics problem.
Closing panels run, and next year's dates get announced on the way out the door, which hands everyone something to look forward to before they have even reached the parking structure.
Take the train and stay until they sweep the floor. The last hour is the one people remember.
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🌎 Nation's Best
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Jun 25 – Jun 27, 2026
Anaheim Convention Center, 800 W K…
Millions of subscribers, thousands of fans, several days in Anaheim — the moment the people on the other side of the screen become real. VidCon is where the parasocial relationship finds its physical address.
What it feels like to be there: VidCon operates on a different logic than most entertainment conventions. The celebrities here are creators who built their audience one subscriber at a time — the recognition runs both ways in a way it rarely does at traditional fan events. A creator who makes videos for 2 million subscribers genuinely knows the specific language and inside jokes of their audience, and the interactions in hallways and signing lines reflect that. The energy is different from comic conventions: less cosplay, more collaboration and mutual recognition between people who have been watching each other's content for years.
Is it worth it? VidCon is for people who consume content online and want to experience its creators in person, or for people building a creator career who want access to industry conversations that do not exist elsewhere. Community Track provides the fan-meeting experience. Creator Track has panels and workshops taught by people who figured out what you are still trying to figure out. Featured Creator panels are the highest-demand events and require early arrival.
What to know before you go: The Anaheim Convention Center is large, and VidCon fills all of it — reviewing the schedule the night before and planning your route through the building is essential, not optional. Lines form early for Featured Creator events; arrive 30-60 minutes ahead for the creators you most want to see. The Anaheim Resort Transit or a nearby hotel within walking distance are practical alternatives to convention center parking. Programming emphasis shifts between days, with Creator and Industry days having different energy from Community days.
VidCon matters because it documents a cultural shift that happened faster than most institutions could track. The most-watched content on Earth in 2026 was made by individuals in their homes, not studios — and VidCon is where the people who made that happen gather to meet the communities that chose them. That is a historically unusual thing, and watching it in person is worth understanding even if you never attend.
2026 specifics: This is VidCon Anaheim 15th anniversary edition. The biggest new addition is a dedicated AI and Innovation Track -- the first VidCon to formally address AI tools as a creator discipline. For anyone building a content business in 2026, this track will be the most talked-about room at the convention. Honest split: Creator Pass holders consistently rate VidCon as worth it for education and networking. Community track holders are increasingly mixed -- the fan experience peaked around 2018-2019 as brand activations thinned. The value depends entirely on which track you buy. 55,000 attendees expected.
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Apr 26, 2026
From $20
Anaheim Convention Center, 800 W K…
Final day of WonderCon Anaheim. Prices in the dealer's room drop. The last-day energy is real — panels, autographs, and saying goodbye until Comic-Con.
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Apr 24, 2026
From $30
Anaheim Convention Center, 800 W K…
WonderCon fills the Anaheim Convention Center with comics, sci-fi, fantasy, film, and the cosplay community that doesn't need a San Diego hotel room to have the time of their lives. Panels from top creators, artist alley discoveries, and a dealer's floor that takes hours to properly explore.
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Apr 25, 2026
From $30
Anaheim Convention Center, 800 W K…
Day 2 at WonderCon Anaheim. The panels get bigger, the artist alley lines get longer, and the cosplay gets more elaborate. The second day is always the best.
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Mar 27 – Mar 29, 2026
Anaheim Convention Center, Anaheim…
Experience three days of nonstop pop culture action! From blockbuster panels and exclusive sneak peeks to cosplay competitions, celebrity meet-and-greets, and interactive gaming zones, WonderCon is a playground for comic, anime, and movie fans alike. Explore sprawling exhibitor halls, discover rare collectibles, and immerse yourself in the excitement and energy that only a premier fan convention can deliver.
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Aug 9 – Aug 11, 2024
Anaheim Convention Center, Anaheim…
D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event 2024 was held August 9-11 at the Anaheim Convention Center. Disney dropped major announcements across MCU, Star Wars, animation, and theme parks — including Avengers: Secret Wars details, new Disney+ series, and next-generation park experiences.
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Get ready, fans! WonderCon 2025 is set to take over Anaheim, California, delivering an electrifying weekend of comics, movies, TV, gaming, cosplay, and everything in between. Organized by the same team behind San Diego Comic-Con, WonderCon offers an immersive experience where fandoms collide and the biggest names in pop culture come together. Expect exclusive panels, sneak peeks at upcoming blockbusters, artist showcases, and a vibrant exhibit hall packed with comics, collectibles, and the latest geeky merch. Whether you're here for celebrity guests, cosplay competitions, or insider looks at your favorite franchises, WonderCon is the ultimate springtime celebration of fandom. Mark your calendars—WonderCon 2025 is where the adventure begins!
While you are lookingDifferent scene, same night out.
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Jan 7 – Jan 10, 2027
Long Beach Convention Center, 300 …
Some knowledge you cannot buy: which panels are worth lining up an hour early for, which guest signings empty out fast, which late-night rooms never make it onto the printed schedule. Regulars hand that down to each other here, and it is the real inheritance of a convention that has been meeting for over two decades.
The tradeoff for running smaller than Anime Expo is access. To the guests, who trend toward voice actors and fan creators who build their year around Southern California cons. To the programming, which you can actually get into. To each other — the dealer room and artist alley run at a scale where you can move without turning sideways.
Four days at the Long Beach Convention Center, January 7-10, 2027, and they open the convention calendar for the whole region.
Send this to whoever you stood next to in line last year. They are already planning.
Coming Soon
🌎 Nation's Best
169 days away
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The oldest and largest anime convention in the Pacific Northwest was started by a group of college students in the mid-nineties, back when liking this at all required explaining yourself, and it is still run entirely by volunteers. That fact shapes everything about the weekend. Nobody is extracting margin from you. The programming is built by people who wanted it to exist rather than by a department, which is why the schedule is full of things no commercial convention would ever green-light.
What that produces is a convention with an unusually high proportion of actual content — panels running past midnight, a serious concert program, a masquerade that people prepare for over months, and a video programming track that still shows things on a screen in a dark room to whoever wanders in. There is a formal ball. There is a chess tournament. The dealer hall is large but is not the center of gravity, which at an anime convention in the current era is genuinely unusual. The crowd skews younger than the older-guard conventions and the atmosphere is closer to a very large school event than to a trade show, in the best possible way.
Worth it? If you want a convention where the programming rather than the shopping is the reason to be there, this is one of a handful left in the country, and it is the best of them on the West Coast outside of Los Angeles. If you are coming primarily for big-name industry announcements, the larger shows will serve you better. Sakura-Con is for people who want to spend three days inside the thing rather than adjacent to it.
What to know before you go: registration opens early and the price ladder rewards buying well ahead. Late March in Seattle means rain, and the walk between the convention center and most hotels is short but unsheltered. The concerts are included with a badge and fill up, so line early for the ones you care about. Bring cash for artist alley. And the volunteer staff will genuinely help you if you ask, because they are attendees too.
It belongs on this list because a thirty-year-old, volunteer-run, still-thriving convention is evidence that a community can build something durable without anyone monetizing it, and that is worth knowing exists. Sakura-Con 2027 runs March 26–28, 2027 at the Seattle Convention Center.
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May 29 – May 31, 2027
Riverside Convention Center, 3637 …
An hour to Los Angeles for the big convention, an hour back at one in the morning — that is what being an anime fan out here has always meant. This is the year that stopped. There is a real pride in a room full of people from Riverside, San Bernardino, Temecula and Redlands who finally did not have to leave home to find each other. It is the whole format at a scale you can actually walk: panels, an exhibit hall, artist alley, gaming rooms, and a cosplay contest judged by a crowd that recognizes the characters without being told. No airport-terminal sprawl. That trade was made on purpose — less distance between you and the thing you came for. The convention takes over the Riverside Convention Center downtown, with dates confirming at animeriverside.com. Bring the friends who made that drive with you one too many times.
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The Masquerade streams live every year, and watching the stream is a completely different event from sitting in that hall. On a screen you see a costume. In the room you see the seams — the thermoplastic, the wiring, the months somebody spent on a shoulder piece nobody was ever supposed to notice. Hundreds of competitors, judged on craft and on performance, and the noise when a build lands is unlike anything else all weekend.
Saturday is the peak of the whole convention. The biggest announcements come out on Saturday. The panel halls hit capacity on Saturday. Artist Alley lines wrap around entire wings, English voice actors do live readings, and Japanese creators appear in person or beamed in from across the ocean.
Come early for the exclusives, then return to the exhibit floor after the main panels, when it briefly calms down. The Expo Line lets you out right there.
Badges go first for this day. Ask the friend you always lose in Artist Alley.
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Everyone chases the opening days — the announcements, the premieres, the Hall H-sized adrenaline. The people who know AX chase the last one. Sunday is when the world's largest anime convention exhales: the lines go short, the floor slows down, and the conversations finally stop being shouted between panels and start being real.
It's also the day the floor gets generous. Artist Alley cuts prices to clear the table, exhibitors let exclusive merch go at a discount, and the Closing Ceremonies — the weekend cosplay recap, the Masquerade awards, the official goodbye — mark the moment four days of strangers become the community that'll wait a whole year to reassemble. Day 4 badges are the easiest to find on resale and the most underrated ticket of the convention. And in 2027 the finale lands on the Fourth of July, with fireworks visible from parts of the LACC plaza depending on which way they launch.
Anime Expo 2027, Sunday July 4, Los Angeles Convention Center. Take Metro or rideshare — downtown parking and traffic are brutal on the Fourth. Come for the goodbye; it's the part that stays with you.
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May 22 – May 23, 2027
Ontario Convention Center, Ontario…
Somewhere in the artist alley there is a table with your favorite book on it, and the person who drew it is sitting behind it, waiting for someone to say the right thing. That is the whole reason to go. The Inland Empire's comic weekend stays small enough that you can actually reach that table — no wristband lottery, no line that eats your morning, no security walking the queue with a clipboard. Panels run all day for the people who want to hear how the work actually gets made. The exclusive merchandise moves early, which the regulars know, which is why they walk the floor before they do anything else. Pop culture at large is here too, but comics are still the spine of it. Ontario Convention Center, in Ontario. Bring the friend who has been quietly drawing in the margins since middle school and has never shown anyone.
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