In the days leading up to FanExpo, I was too busy to start pre-writing the blog post. Halfway through the weekend I decided I wasn’t going to write anything. Well it’s been a few weeks and I do at least have a few things to say. FanExpo was the biggest con I have ever done. Naturally, this will be my shortest blog post so far.
iFanExpo has a reputation as being the kind of con you don’t make money at unless you’re selling fanart. It’s historically difficult for creators of entirely original work like me to do well at FanExpo. I’ve certainly been to cons where the majority of attendees are just looking for junk featuring characters they’re familiar with. I knew FanExpo would be like that.
I didn’t think it would be as bad as it was.
Based on previous events I covered in my blog posts about PIE and Philly Otaku Fest as well as a small event called May Fair which I didn’t write about, I felt like I was on fire. While talking to a few new artist friends who have done FanExpo before, I began to come up with some expectations for how the weekend was going to go.
As a local, my only real expense was the table fee of $369 plus food and subway travel. Since I hoped to make connections with other artists and build a new fanbase in the area, I wasn’t shooting for massive profits. I decided that if I made just $500 then I would consider it a success.
At FanExpo Philadelphia 2025 I made exactly $200.
I have never – and I mean never – lost that much money at a con. I’ve had less successful cons, I’ve not made back table at cons, I’ve had barely a dollar in profits when you add up the expenses, but I have never outright lost this much money.
Usually, a bad con is the result of bad attendance which is itself a result of bad marketing or a poorly chosen date or venue. But FanExpo had plenty of people there all day, even on Friday when it was downright storming outside.
There were people at FanExpo. And none of them were there for indie comics. How do I know? Because I was smashed right between two artists selling fanart and while I constantly had people in front of my table, they were usually looking at the tables next to me.
And I mean we were smashed next to each other. Most cons give you two or three feet between tables. FanExpo gave us less than a millimeter. People straight up thought I was the one selling enamel pins at the table next to me.
God, those pins. The artist straight up said, multiple times, all weekend, that they didn’t make all of them and that was super obvious. Most of them were different art styles, some were mass produced from major companies like Disney. The artist claimed they got them by trading with other pin-makers which… I’ve traded comics with people at cons but I don’t sell comics I didn’t make? They also complained about how expensive the 10×10 vendor booth was and… hey, that’s where you should be because artist alley is for artists selling only their own work and not attracting people who are going to block real artists struggling to stand one.
Not only were people spending all of their money on Miku pins, they were also spending it on the guests. The whole point of bringing in big movie stars and TV is to attract guests to come to the con so they will do other con thing while they’re there. The guests are “attractions” after all. I don’t hate guests. One of my most successful cons ever was when I was showing off my tokusatsu-inspired comic while being a few tables away from actual Power Rangers.
But when John Cena is there charging like $500 for an autograph, everyone is in line all day and when they finally get to artist alley they can’t even afford a comic which is literally $5.
I sold 40 comics at FanExpo which is technically the most I have ever sold at a single con. But that’s barely more than I made at PIE or May Fair which were all single day events where I wasn’t surrounded by people looking for anime merch and buying pins from an artist who didn’t make them while sitting at a table that cost me almost $400.
If you draw pictures of fictional characters who have been popular in the last 3 years and print them out on things, you’ll probably make $5,000 at FanExpo. If you’re an indie creator just trying to break even and introduce people to a world, character, and story that you made up with your own creativity, you’d probably have a better time setting up a table at IHOP without permission.