Are Cosplay Conventions Becoming Too Expensive Now?

Are cosplay conventions becoming too expensive now?

So I was trying to book a hotel for an upcoming Anime convention. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to snag a hotel for this con. I decided to check on the alternative hotels available.

Honestly, I was so shocked how expensive some of the alternative hotels were. It wasn’t even that close to the convention, and they were going for well over $200 USD/night, some going close to $300 USD/night. For me as a Canadian, that would be over $400 CAD a night. If I stayed for 2-3 nights, we’re looking close to spend a grand for a hotel room at a convention that’s far away.

And it’s not just in the USA where hotel prices have gone up dramatically (in my opinion). I have a friend in the UK who told me the hotels for a big convention in London has been astronomically expensive too. According to them, they said a hotel nearby can easily cost over $4000 USD/night. Ouch that hurts.

And in Canada, things aren’t that much cheaper either. One of my favorite conventions in Canada, Otakuthon (click here to read my review), has also increased in price as well. After tax, hotels were going close to $300 CAD a night and although that’s cheaper than the US, it’s a lot more than what I was paying back then.

If you want to only attend a convention and buy a badge, well that’s not cheap either. Lately, I’ve been spending close to over $100 -$150 USD to attend a convention for the entire weekend.

What’s going on?! It feels like the price to attend an Anime convention has gone up by a lot. So in this post, I wanted to discuss the question, “are cosplay conventions becoming too expensive now?” I’ll go over the costs today vs. back then, why things have gotten so expensive and what options we have as attendees.

Without further ado, let’s get started!

Comparison of costs back 10-15 years ago

 

 

I’ve been attending different Anime and cosplay conventions for well over a decade now. So I have a pretty good grasp of how the prices have fluctuated over the years.

For example, I was going through my email and found the prices for my hotel at Otakuthon way back in 2012. For 2 nights, I paid around $300 CAD. In 2025, I would have paid over $600 CAD for the same hotel. So it has more than doubled since then.

As you can see, prices have steadily gone up over the years. But it really has spiked in the past few years dramatically. I myself have noticed the big increases, hence why I made this post. So it’s not a figment of my imagination; cosplay convention prices have really been increasing, maybe to a level that I cannot accept.

 

Causes of convention price hikes

 

But before we get to my own opinion on this, let’s talk about why convention prices have gone up so much. Here are some potential reasons. Note these aren’t scientific facts, they are just my speculations as a cosplay blogger. So don’t take my opinions as gospel:

• I’m no economist but inflation has apparently been a huge problem since the pandemic ended. The reasons for inflation are numerous, but whatever the reasons, it doesn’t change the fact that prices for conventions have also been inflated.

Now I’m not saying that conventions are trying to ride the inflation ride and charge inflated prices. The costs to run a convention have probably gone up as well, so they probably have to charge more to keep up with paying for those expenses. Lifestyle inflation is a real thing, and convention hotels and badges are no exception.

Which brings me to my next point…

• Expenses being passed to congoers. Let’s face it; when expenses for businesses like conventions get higher, they will inevitably have to pass that extra expense to customers. And I think that’s partly why cons have gotten quite expensive in recent years. Just like how your groceries and restaurants have gotten more expensive, so has your recreational activities like attending conventions. Unfortunately, everything has gotten expensive.
• Supply and demand. This is kind of a mixed bag. I’ve noticed that some conventions have stagnated in attendance numbers. Meanwhile, other conventions keep breaking attendance records every year.

For the ones in the latter, the demand for hotel rooms is high and the supply may be low. Which means some hotels have dynamic pricing, where they can charge more based on demand. So if a convention is selling out hotels within minutes, they can afford to jack up the prices because people will pay for them. Hey, if I was a hotel owner, I’d probably do the same. If people are willing to pay tons of money to avoid FOMO, why not charge as much as you possibly can?

 

What can we do about it?

So now we know that conventions are expensive as *, what can we do about it? Here are my suggestions:

Go to smaller and local conventions.* I put an asterisk for this point because I notice that even smaller conventions are getting expensive too. But in general, attending the smaller conventions that are local to you, that will always save you money vs traveling to a big convention. Not only will the badge be cheaper for smaller cons, you also won’t have to pay for an Airbnb or hotel room at a local convention. You can just simply take public transit and drive to the local convention, and head back home afterwards.

Instead of going to 2-3 big conventions a year, only do 1. Before the pandemic, I’m sure a lot of us could afford to attend 2-3 big Anime conventions and not be financially burdened. But with some big conventions being crazy expensive now, a compromise can be made where you only attend 1 convention for the whole year. Yeah it sucks if you’re used to going to many conventions during the year. But if you save all your money for just 1 convention, then you probably don’t have to worry about overspending. If you budget 3 conventions for only 1 convention, then you’ll have plenty to money to spend for that one special convention!

Only go 1 day instead of the entire weekend. For those who follow my blog, you know that I like to attend international conventions that are located in places I want to travel to. I recently went to Dokomi this year in Germany. But I made this trip part of a big vacation in Europe. So I ended up only spending 1 day at Dokomi, and spend the rest of my vacation elsewhere in Germany. I’m kind of glad I did! Dokomi was pretty expensive, and the hotels nearby were even more expensive. So I saved money by only going for 1 day. And while it would have been nice to have attended multiple days, I am satisfied with just 1 day in attendance. And I saved tons of money by only needing to spend 1 night in an expensive hotel nearby, vs. 2-3 nights.

 

Conclusion

Are cosplay conventions becoming too expensive now? For a lot of conventions, yes I would say so. The economy, higher cost of living and super high demand, it’s all driving prices through the roof. But we can adapt by choosing which conventions to attend.

I hope you found this post interesting!