I live in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area and recently started helping a good friend of mine and his wife who have a small side business selling vintage toys and comic books at small conventions. I had stopped going to most Conventions for a while. A couple of years back the guy who ran the major ones in this area sold to Fan Expo and it wasn't as fun as it once was. I am loving going to the small conventions because you get to interact with legit fans and talk about sci-fi/fantasy or comic books.
I used to have it on my bucket list to one day go to the San Diego con or the annual Star Trek convention in Vegas but they seem to (like so many others) have stopped catering to actual fans and are more interested in the woke garbage. Panels about more diversity/women in gaming or how evil nerd culture is doesn't cut it for me.
Kind of reminds me of my beloved Sci-Fi channel. It came out when I was 10 or 11 and I loved it because as a sci-fi nerd, it seemed to be a channel for people who liked sci-fi. Now like so many other nerd sites it has turned into the usual fake geek hangout. I stopped going on the syfy channel website when the lady reviewing Brightburn complained about white supremacy and the evil white male nonsense.
Used to, pre-COVID. But I felt them getting worse and worse as time went on. As Wokeness went on. More panels about Blamxns In Anime or whatnot drivel, and less about, you know, anime, at an anime convention. Cosplays got worse as more and more rules restricted what you could do: First it was no guns, then no gun-like objects, then weapons in general, then "weapon-like objects" in general. Then clothing restrictions and modesty requirements.
It went from custom-gun-toting bikini babes talking about how awesome the next seasons of anime showings would be, to No Fun Allowed you can only show sexuality if it is homosexuality (somehow they got a by) and no speaking about anime, only about how problematic it is. And that's just sad.
I know someone in a LARP group that goes to the same cons... They said that in recent two or three years, they don't even buy a pass for the con, just do their work showcasing their LARP as a contractor and don't even participate outside it because it isn't worth it... And LARPers are, well, LARPers, so that shows how bad it's gotten.
if its a woke con, good for them. dont give the feaujustice commies any money.