Probably not what you wanted to hear as a new attendee, but you need to temper your expectations.

Conventions back in the day were incredible. It was the highlight of your entire year whenever you went and it would genuinely feel like your life was worth living for one to three days. It genuinely gave you that feeling of stepping into another world that you’re probably wanting and expecting. It got a little bit more sparse in the 2010s, but it was still there, all the way until around 2017. After a certain point around then, every single person who defined the original American “con culture” just didn’t show up any more. Nowadays, they’re superficially the same, but they simply feel empty and pedestrian in a way you’ll be familiar with if you’ve been in a fanbase that went mainstream and was taken over by Instagram users.

You’re going to have to make your own fun if you go. Expect to meet a lot of seemingly charismatic people who flake on you after one day. Bring 300 USD for food and merch or you won’t really enjoy yourself.

>>153272804
I miss when Comic Cons used to smell bad because it was full of actual fat neckbeards
I can still remember the Doritos / old gym socks smell

Nowadays I only go to see if i can get some stuff with discounts, cosplay events and other shit like that dont really interest me.

>>153273128
i dont understand why they dont just crank the AC, knowing everyone's gonna be in hot costumes.

>>153272804
Have fun. Buy stuff.

>>153273866
I long for the days when these two things were not so intertwined.

>>153272804
mysterio should be sucking of green goblinin that pic

>>153274022
I long for the days when we had a functioning economy built on the premise of 'have fun, buy stuff' instead of 'be poor, blame the rich, feel like shit all the time'

File: now how the hell would i do that.gif (1.6 MB)

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>>153274249
>Mysterio when told 'blow me'

>>153272804
The last con I went to I remember them asking a "Spiderman" cosplayer to leave because he was clearly not wearing underpants and you could easily see his Weiner through the flimsy costume.

>>153274409
Same, anon. But one can long for both.

bump

>>153274702
and what did he do fight you or left?

>>153272804
I stopped going to comic conventions. The last time I went was in Spring 2024. I have no desire to go to the spring 2026 convention. My city puts on 2 per year, but the only celebrities are comic artists, cosplayers, voice actors, and wrestlers. My most memorable celebrities I met were Kurt Angle, Booker T, and Veronica Taylor.

I no longer even want to buy comics because I already have enough and my eyesight is so bad that I can't even read print floppy comics anymore.

My city does have a pinball festival once per year that I'm more interested in.

>>153277698
I didn’t know people this old even posted on 4chan.

What were old cons like? Better than the soulless holes they are now? Is the pinball festival anything similar? Genuinely curious. I’m too young to have been to any cons before they became these big corporate things.

>>153277736
You think I'm old because the last convention I went to was in spring 2024? I think the first convention I went to was in 2012 or so. Conventions are a lot older than that.

This is really just a local convention in a city that is about 70,000 people big. So all there really is are a bunch of tables of merch sellers and some independent artists selling their stuff. I don't imagine it's any different today. It's so crowded that it eventually just gets into this "soup mode" where a bunch of people are jammed together and you really can't move. There are costumes, but I don't really care anymore. I'm 39.

The pinball festival is a lot more fun, it's a ton of different machines all set on free-play for only $20. I just go from one machine to the next playing them.

>>153277808
I think you’re old because you’re discussing having eyesight too poor to read floppies and your enthusiasm for a pinball festival, which I’ve never seen anyone under the age of 50 attend. It’s not meant to be an insult, I’m just surprised. 39 seems more average for the board, so just ignore my previous assumption please.

The first con I attended was in either 2014 or 2015 (can’t remember), so even just 2012 is different enough.

I have a local con in similar circumstances that’s just about the same thing, save for the crowdedness. I think I’ve only ever seen like 25% capacity at anything but the single-room cons. It’s 90% web artists selling badges or keychains, toy resellers showing off mechs or anime figurines alongside crap they probably found off of temu, and slabbers trying to speculate on cards/comics, 10% LCS owners trying desperately to offload multiple longboxes worth of very recent inventory. I think a few of them sell old floppies, too, but they’re often for pretty high prices (like, a random issue of some C-lister’s solo from 50 years ago for $30) and never the good issues.
There are a scant amount of cosplayers around; mostly sweaty kids or even sweatier hamplanets that don’t leave the house at any other time of the year. Some people bring dogs (without costume); I don’t know why. Most of the cosplayers are very elaborate, advertising their social media profiles somewhere (and sometimes getting their own booths for whatever reason), not really fans of what they’re cosplaying. The main exception I can remember was a Captain America who was so fat that his head-sized shield was eclipsed by his stomach.
Nobody in the staff really knows anything about the event. Some of them are extreme casuals trying their best to appeal to very young children, for some reason, through very childish events.

This has been pretty typical for most of the smaller cons I visit. I want to know if it’s standard or a new development.

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>>153272804
my gf

>>153272804
Simple as they are the Mysterio, Kraven and Hobgoblin costumes here are legit solid.

>>153272804
>>153279311
Mysterio looks like the Hammer of Boravia