For four days every October, New York City resembles something out of a science fiction movie – people dressed in elabourate, head-turning costumes pepper Manhttan’s West Side. These superheroes, winged creatures and anime characters are all on their way to New York Comic Con, the US east coast’s massive ode to comic books and entertainment.
The first New York Comic Con was held in 2006 with 33,000 attendees. Today, roughly 200,000 fans gather at the Jacob K Javits Convention Center, attending panels and swarming booths showcasing future releases in comics, video games and toys. Celebrity spottings are common: 2023’s convention, which runs 12 to 15 October, will feature top names in entertainment, including Ewan McGregor and Chris Evans, who each played major characters in blockbuster films.
Fans spend big to get in on the fun – for some, the total runs into the thousands when accounting for costumes, tickets, travel and merchandise (think an $18,000 life-size light-up Iron Man statue, or a $30 Thor-hammer meat tenderiser). It’s worth it for the fans who return every year.
Dave Murillo spends upwards of $7,000 (Credit: Courtesy of Dave Murillo)
Dave Murillo, 37: $7,000 to $9,000 (£5,777 to £7,414)
Dave Murillo was a lapsed comic book fan, but rekindled his love when he attended his first New York Comic Con in 2016. He’s gone every year since, except 2020, when the in-person gathering was cancelled due to the pandemic.
Initally, he “didn’t have any expectations,” he says. He worked as an operations specialist for a company that created DC and Marvel-licensed goods, and his boss had an extra ticket. He was drawn in by the atmosphere as well as the mentality among the attendees: “We’re all nerds there,” he says. “It’s a judgement free zone.”
Now, he’s all in. For this year’s New York City event, a four-day pass costs $250 with fees and shipping; a four-night stay in Times Square is $1,600. Gas and tolls back and forth to his home in Albany, New York, runs him $100, and parking is an additional $200.
He expects to spend between $800 and $1,200 on convention-exclusive comics in the first hour alone, which cost $20 to $50 each. He will spend $400 to $600 for comic creators signitures, which can run from $5 to $60; $2,000 to $3,000 to get 40 to 60 comics “graded”, or appraised; $1,000 on other comics; and $600 to $700 for after-parties and food.
To recoup some cash, he plans to sell some of his haul on eBay once he returns home. In 2018, he made $710 off a $40 exclusive signed comic – a habit that helps alleviate the stress on his bank account.
Alongside the New York event, Murillo now attends 10 to 12 comic cons each year across the US. “You have to find ways to put money aside for this,” he says. Besides his full-time job as an implication specialist and product manager for a software company, helping clients learn to use programs, he delivers food with UberEats. “My gift to myself is going to comic cons and having a good time, because that’s what work is for.”
Jasmine Hayes spends just less than $500 (Credit: Courtesy of Jasmine Hayes)
Jasmine Hayes, 34: $460 (£379)
For years, Jasmine Hayes’s friends insisted she had go to New York Comic Con, but she never found the time, until last October. Dressed in costume as DC Comics character Poison Ivy, she fell in love with the event the moment she saw the life-sized statues of charecters from the anime Dragon Ball Z.
Hayes is attending Friday and Saturday this year, wearing a different costume – called cosplaying – each day. But she’s cost consious, calling herself “a super bargain shopper”: she stacks coupons at a large fabric retailer, where she buys supplies to fashion her own outfits. Her first day’s home-made costume cost $50 and took 18 hours to create; for her second day, she bought a pre-made look for $30 from Amazon.
Tickets for the convention cost her $170 after fees, taxes and shipping. Living only one state over in Connecticut saves Hayes money. She wanted to stay in a hotel, but it would have cost between $500 and $1,000, so instead, she’ll take the train each day: combined with public transit and Uber, it costs $140. She’s allotted $100 per day for food, drinks and merchanside such as manga, clothing and art. She purchases food outside the venue to avoid the high prices in the convention centre.
Additionally, she purchased $40 worth of business cards with QR codes to her social media to hand out.
Her favourite part of the con is seeing cosplayer friends, with whom she trades photos and stickers. “When you see that they built something from scratch and it’s humongous or super detailed, you’re like, ‘I can appreciate this, and I love this, and I love that you love this so much to put in so much work’,” she says.
Lisa Mancini spends up to $3,000 (Credit: Courtesy of Lisa Mancini)
Lisa Mancini, 29: $1,550 to $3,000 (£1,276 to £ 2,463)
By the time Lisa Mancini went to her first New York Comic Con in 2022, she was already a seasoned cosplayer.
She was “a diehard fan of Halloween”, when she found out there were places where “people could dress up more than one once a year”. Her first convention was 2018’s Fan Expo Canada, where she wore a full-armor Bowser suit from the Halloween prior: “People were stopping me for photos and acting like I was like a celebrity.”
The most she has ever spent on merch at a convention was $70 at that first Fan Expo. She’s not a big spender once she gets to the convention – “you will not get me to buy water there” – but instead allocates between $50 to $100 on drinks and food outside the venue. If she wants merchandise, she’ll buy it online.
Travel and housing are Mancini’s core expenses. Flying isn’t an option because she needs room to protect her delicate costumes – she has a different one for each day – so she and three other Toronto-based cosplayers rent an SUV and drive eight hours to the convention. Per person, the trip costs $500 for the rental, $75 in gas and tolls and $50 for parking. The group splits a hotel room across from the venue for $275 each for four nights. Unlike other attendees, however, she didn’t spend on a ticket, after getting an extra from a friend.
Her costumes are the biggest expense. Each takes weeks to make, and include tons of body paint, 3D printer filament, resin and yards of fabric. Depending on their intricacy, they can run between $150 and $500.
She thrives off the energy at the convention, where kids believe she’s a true superhero, she says. “The appreciation from people in person is so much better than on the internet.”