The hidden costs of fan conventions

By Rue Parmar, October 29 2025—

Once sites of genuine community and creativity, modern fan conventions now exemplify how social-media-driven cultural capital, market inflation, fast-fashion economics and unsafe crowding practices undermine the very subcultures they claim to celebrate.

Fan culture has been a prevalent powerhouse in popular culture and media, and conventions are the epicentre for its continual growth. These events foster a positive environment for different passion projects such as cosplaying, fan-fiction writing and small art businesses. However, with their consistently rising popularity and the effects of an unstable economy, the negative impacts of such large gatherings and markets are becoming increasingly apparent: inflation and competition is leading to disdain towards small businesses, we’re seeing an increase in weaponized cultural capital, and intense crowding is leading to increased safety concerns.

Small businesses are one of the only ways artists can earn a livable income, and selling small pieces of apparel or decorations for different popular works is often the only way people in more niche fan communities can support themselves and their families. The process of putting a price on your products and art is a difficult act which balances supply and demand, but in our current economy, it has become crucial to place your own needs above the needs of consumers. 

Unfortunately, this notion has proven to be controversial and leads to many issues for both the vendor and the customer, a tension which is only amplified by the new presence of online shopping hubs.

With the growing divide between small businesses selling higher priced, authentic items and large companies providing similar products at a lower price point, consumers are forced to pick between paying inflated prices or supporting unethical labour conditions, such as those in the fast-fashion industry. This issue is most devastating for small businesses as the public becomes more and more accustomed to low prices which independents can’t keep up with. 

At conventions such as the Calgary Alien Stage Cupsleeve, a large population of shoppers are students or teenagers, as they are the largest demographic who engage in fan culture. But as a population of younger people who expect cheaply priced products, or can’t afford to pay for high-quality items, it’s easy for them to become resentful towards the businesses in their area and instead purchase from online stores. 

But monetary exchange isn’t the only aspect of convention culture that’s been exacerbated in recent years. In fact, social currency is becoming perhaps even more constrained. 

When interacting with any fandom community, it is expected that one will know the customs and values of that specific culture — that participants have a certain degree of cultural literacy. In our current era, gaining cultural literacy is a matter of Google searches and consuming the specific media which is most prevalent in pop culture at a given moment. 

While it was previously true that one could have minimal cultural literacy when attending a convention, and one’s passion for artistic media was considered the most important quality, the rise in fandom popularity has made navigating the culture more complex and nuanced. It is impossible to fully understand your surroundings at a convention if you are not already familiar with the practices of going to a convention, yet less and less people are willing to share that knowledge with newcomers — convention culture has essentially become a closed practice. 

This is in part due to the transition from social interactions taking place in person to on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic. If you were an attendee of conventions before the global shutdown, you would have learned how to be a “model fan” by word of mouth. However, achieving the same status today requires immense research online as to what customs are practiced at conventions and how these rules are applied differently in various areas or cities. And if one doesn’t learn the required cultural literacy before attending a convention, if one fails to adhere to the unwritten rules presented, it is easy for them to face conflict with other attendees or even find themselves at odds with authority figures such as convention staff and security.

Fandom knowledge has become incredibly rich and condensed, yet while that information is all archived on the internet, the multiplicity of knowledge makes it nearly impossible to get a clear picture of how specific fandom spaces work today.

Despite this sense of intellectual exclusivity, the rise in entertainment media has seen a similar increase in fans, and convention spaces are not growing fast enough to keep up with this rapid growth. Hosting a convention — especially on a local, community-based scale — is incredibly expensive, and event staff rarely see any surplus returned to them. This means that finding a larger space or hosting more businesses within the space they do have is not viable, leading to significant overcrowding in convention centres and a spike in the presence of health emergencies due to the lack of space. 

In fan conventions, tables are typically lined up into aisles, leaving enough space for a single file line of customers at stands and for two people to walk side-by-side in the general traffic. However, the space at Rakku Con Fall 2025 was recently reduced so that participants are forced to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with others in marginally larger aisles. With little space to stand, there is also no space to sit, and body heat quickly evolves into heavy steam. How any large crowd becomes fatal is when people become so tightly packed that the pressures exerted on the body become unbearable. Many times, in the hopes of being inclusive and maximizing profit, event organizers exceed the maximum capacity of the building space. Calgary Expo has been specifically guilty of this repeatedly, as their small space this year was exceedingly crowded, but this only amplifies the issue and leads to an abundance of littering. There’s simply not enough space in the venue to contain the waste produced, which is just as gross as you can imagine.

Although going to a convention can be a fun outing or an opportunity to endorse your artistic passions, it is important to consider the risks associated with such large events, and always put your safety above all else. 

With proper awareness and preparation, conventions can return to what they were meant to be: a celebration of community, not a cause for concern.