Since the early 2000’s anime and comic cons have increased in size and frequency to meet the demands of fans all across the world. Fast forward to 2019, these same cons have increased their ticket prices by 5, 10, or sometimes 20 dollars every few years. Now with ticket price increases it is hard to assess if the con is providing more, less, or the same value to fans, but none the less fans should be aware of what their ticket goes for. At most cons, your admission ticket covers 3 things: Guests (guarantees or non-guarantees), Venue Costs, and Supporting paid and Non-paid staff.
Guests:
Every con, be it an anime, comic, or pop culture event, wants to have people who are a draw to that event in order to sell tickets and please fans. Cons can go two ways in obtaining guests for conventions either by granting a guest a guarantee or by paying an appearance fee or travel costs. If a guest is granted a guarantee the con is promising that guest a minimum amount of money will be paid to appear at the con. At the con, every autograph or photo that the guest sells will be counted against the guarantee to minimize, in the case that the guarantee is not met, the amount the con will have to pay to that guest. Conversely, if the guest goes beyond the guarantee they are entitled to that money as well. Cons in recent years, in order to attract guests and minimize risks with guarantees have begun to sell pre-autograph tickets before the con, which gives the guest some sense of the money they will make along with easing the potential the con might pay out in a bad situation.
The other way cons obtain guests is through appearance fees, which is when a guest is paid a certain amount of money to be at a con or event. At the event that person can charge or not charge for an autograph. In many cases these guests will sign a certain number of items for free and then charge or will have a specific list of items they charge for to sign.
With both of these guest procedures the ticket you purchase goes to covering them in different ways. For a guest with a guarantee a portion of ticket sales prior to the con are allocated to cover any guarantee in case a guest is not able to make their quotas as promised by the con. Thus, a part of your ticket is directly guaranteeing a guest will receive money for charging fans to sign an autograph. If all guarantees are met the con can then reallocate that money to other venues depending on if they are a corporation or a 501(c)4 charity. Conversely, with appearance fee guests a portion of your ticket immediately goes to paying their fees and expenses for coming to the con. Once there those guests, otherwise outlined under their contracts, can charge or not charge for an autograph without the con becoming involved. These two ways to pay/obtain guests apply to celebrities, comic writers, artists, wrestlers, voice actors, authors, and cosplayers and depend on the con and the funding they have for that year.
Venue Costs:
Anime and comic cons typically take place in convention centers or hotels. These convention centers or hotels are in the business of renting out space to a variety of different cons. Depending on the area, time of year, and people attending and staying in a hotel (if it applies) that affects the price of the venue for that weekend. Due to this cost, cons use some of the money to rent the convention or hotel where panels, signing, and a dealer’s room can be, along with any other events that might take place during the weekend. Furthermore, at several convention centers and hotels a con might be responsible for purchasing insurance either for their attendees or for damages that might be caused due to the events of that weekend. All of these things are factored into a ticket price.
Staff:
Cons are not built without effort from both paid and non-paid staff/volunteers/panelists. Paid staff are people who receive a check prior to, during, or after the convention for work they have done. Some of these people are responsible for reaching out to guests, developing guarantee or appearance fee contracts, customer service, social media, panel selecting and scheduling and security. Typically, these people have jobs that are behind the scenes and do a lot of prep work to make a con go as smoothly as possible. Furthermore, paid staff at a convention are usually the ones who handle problems with guests, con situations, or other circumstances that come up. The other paid staff at cons are handlers for guests with guarantees as their only job is to record and document all the autographs or photos that the person has sold, in order to make sure the con pays no or as little money to the guest as possible. Cons also have other staff who are not paid. These people are either giving directions/information, providing support to panelists, helping keep lines in an orderly fashion, or providing additional support as needed. Both paid and non-paid staff at many cons receive several perks that ticket sales cover. These included a free badge, staff shirts, at some cons food or a snack room. Most cons, for their paid staff and sometimes security, will cover or provide a discount for their hotel rooms far below the normal rate. These perks whether it be food, a shirt, a hotel room, or a free badge is all covered by the price of the ticket. Furthermore, big cons catering to more than 10,000 people would not exist without panelists most of whom are fan panelists who are not getting paid. Rather these panelists are receiving a badge in return for their prestation, which has a value of what a badge is selling for. This cost is also absorbed by ticket sales as they helped to cover that expenditure the con has in providing free tickets to panelists or refunding them after the event.
Now the way the con ticket system is set up is neither good or bad, but it is important as a fan and a ticket purchaser to know what and how your purchase is being spent on the con and for the group, organization or corporation that is running the con.
