I love comic conventions and if you’re reading this, chances are you do as well. If you live in Arizona, you are probably at least aware of one or two conventions held across the state. Hopefully if you are a frequent reader of the site then you know the amount of pop culture conventions, which includes comic books, anime, media, cosplay, and video games, in Arizona is plentiful. It’s almost an embarrassing amount of riches we have as fans of these events. Most fans don’t attend every single event, just picking and choosing which they would like to attend throughout the year. The state tows the line of just enough events and one too many, eventually, something is going to give and sway that balance. For the uninformed, lets make a quick list of cons in Arizona in order of when they usually are held.

Taiyou Con (January, Mesa)
Amazing Arizona Comic Con (January, Phoenix)
Con-nichiwa (March, Tucson)
Tucson Collectable Car and Toy Show (March, Tucson)
Devcon (March, Glendale)
Tucson Art and Press Expo (April, Tucson)
Zapcon (April, Mesa)
Phoenix Comicon (May, Phoenix)
Arizona iCon (June, Glendale)
Leprecon (June, Phoenix)
Cosfest (July, Mesa)
Game On Expo (August, Mesa)
Saboten Con (September, Phoenix)
Comic and Media Expo (October, Mesa)
Tucson Comic Con (November, Tucson)
Kikori Con (November, Flagstaff)
Ariona iCon Holiday (December, Glendale)
Phoenix Comicon Fan Fest (December, Glendale)
*Salute to Supernatural (I include this because we will be getting it for a second year in a row in 2016)

I’m probably missing one or two even smaller conventions, but 19 is a large number of events. While the name of some of these events might be a little misleading, they are all centered around pop culture. That is a lot of events competing for your dollar, each show fighting to make themselves unique. A problem that will arise, if it hasn’t already, is that talent is going to get stretched thin, vendors won’t be able to attend every show, and eventually some of these shows overall quality will suffer. Will it matter though? I don’t have every conventions attendance numbers but attendance trends are still increasing from year to year, with individual events posting all time high attendance records. It could be that Arizona has found its sweet spot for the number of cons that can successfully be held however, the more success, the more people will want in on the convention scene and start up their own. It will be interesting to see how things shake out in the next 3 – 5 years in Arizona with these conventions, which will cons show sustainability and which will have a hard time adapting to an ever increasing and evolving fan base.

Thanks for putting up with my rambling if you’ve gotten this far but this is all just my opinion and thoughts on the subject, how do you feel about the Arizona convention scene? Do you think it will get even better or do you see some of these conventions will fall to the way side? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.