Hey friends and anime fans,
A couple of weeks ago I wrote to you about how things have really been going, and I was blown away by how many of you wrote back. Dozens, maybe a hundred of you. Attendees, artists, vendors, staff from other conventions, people I hadn't talked to in years. Thank you. I read every single one.
Some of what you shared was hard to read. Vendors wrote in confirming what I suspected: it's not just us. Sales are down at shows all across the industry. One of you even sent me your own unofficial inflation breakdown and it looks bleak. Rent and healthcare are way up, even though TVs and electronics are cheaper. Student loans are collecting again. Home insurance has doubled, if you're lucky enough to need home insurance. Gas and food cost more and the quality is worse. As one of you put it: every year we're paying more and getting less, for everything. Someone told me about a McDonald's worker who hasn't gotten a raise in three years — and honestly, I'd bet plenty of people behind comfy desks are in the same boat.
The convention industry is feeling all of it. Anime Fusion in Minnesota closed. A-Kon in Texas — one of the oldest anime conventions in America — closed. I've heard about corporate cons double booking the same weekend just to squeeze vendors. I don't know where the breaking point is. I just know that fans have less to spend, and some parts of this industry keep asking them for more.
This is bigger than any one show or any one person. It's the economy every single one of us is living in.
And one of you was very kind to reach out with nutrition and lifestyle help for Hashimoto's after I mentioned what my fianceĢe has been going through. That one meant more than you know. This community shows up for people. It's why I do this.
Which brings me to the question so many of you asked: "Why don't you go back to the Hyatt?"
I get it. The Hyatt Regency O'Hare was our home for over a decade. I have real love for that building and for many of the people in it. So let me pull back the curtain, because it wasn't one decision. It was a hundred small ones, and most of them hit your wallet or your convention experience before they ever hit mine.
But that building was recently sold to a private equity firm, "M4 Airport Tenant LLC", and the experience has not been the same since.
It started with costs. Every year I fight for the lowest room rate I can get, because a hotel room is the single biggest expense for most of you. For 2026 I asked the hotel to lower rooms to $130 and $140 a night, because so many of you told me the cost of attending had simply gotten too high. They wouldn't go below the old rates of $154 and $164. Parking we once had contracted at $17 a day — the hotel's standard rate has since climbed as high as $50 a day. Fifty dollars, for an empty square of concrete. That's more than a badge to my convention.
And here's the trap I worry about for you specifically: when a hotel offers attendees a "deal" outside our official room block — say, $130 instead of our block rate — it often doesn't include the negotiated parking. So that "$130 discount room" quietly becomes $180 a night once the full parking price lands on your folio, more expensive than booking with us ever was. We negotiate the whole package for a reason. The advertised number is not the real number.
And then they use the "they booked outside of the room block" to not give the convention credit for that room booking, or "it was at a lower rate" even though they're making double the money on parking.
Then there's the fine print on our own bills. From last year's final invoice: $82.50 to plug in one power strip (repeated multiple times in multiple rooms). A single electrical work order for $4,160. $1,800 in "firewatch" fees just so our dances could legally happen. The actual fire permit from the city cost $100, which we applied for and paid for ourselves, but the hotel's fees to stand next to the fire panel were $1,800. When I asked, I was told it's union labor. And listen — I'm a licensed electrician, I have zero problem with union labor. Union workers deserve every dime of their rate. But the hotel takes that union rate and adds a very healthy margin on top before it reaches my invoice. That margin comes out of the convention — out of guests, events, and keeping badge and artist alley prices down. When we've had to raise artist table prices over the years, this is a huge part of why.
We also learned we had to check every line of every bill. Last year, some of our staff were charged $20 a day for parking when our contracted rate was $17 — we caught it, and $933 was refunded after the convention. But the one that really shook my confidence was the room audit. After each convention, the hotel audits which attendees booked rooms outside our official block, because we're owed credit for those rooms — it affects our rebates and whether we owe penalties. In 2024, that audit found 265 room nights. In 2025, with similar attendance, the number they first gave us was 38. Thirty-eight. I sat down, did the proportional math, showed them it made no sense — and only then did a corrected number come back: 174. I don't know why the first number was wrong by a factor of more than four. I just know that if we hadn't checked, nobody would have, and tens of thousands of dollars in credits and penalties ride on numbers like that.
And then there was the on-the-ground stuff, which you may have felt directly. At Con Alt Delete in December, you asked us for a quiet room near Con Ops — so we set one up, and asked the hotel to unlock it at 5:05pm. At 7:28pm I was still emailing "It's still locked...." Vendor tables promised and delivered hours late, all weekend, at both shows. Hotel Wi-Fi that didn't work the entire weekend — I couldn't connect from my own room — and the answer was that this is "the standard internet for the hotel." A guest at 4am being told there were no luggage carts, in a building full of luggage carts. Our own guests denied their hotel loyalty points on rooms we paid for. Any one of these is a bad day. All of them, every event, for two years, is a message.
Meanwhile, the teams at the Embassy Suites and the DoubleTree have genuinely acted like they want us there. They answer fast, they solve problems, and they treat our attendees like guests instead of line items. After fifteen years of doing this, I've learned that a hotel that wants you is worth ten hotels that tolerate you.
Unfortunately the hotel isn't as big and we were hit with a massive storm that knocked out the power and the air conditioning. The hotel has told me they're hoping to work on it for next year.
I want to be clear: there are individual people at the Hyatt who worked hard for us over the years, and I'm grateful to them. But this is my responsibility to you. Every venue decision comes down to one question: does this make the convention better and more affordable for the people who come? I never wanted to run conventions to get rich — I wanted to build the kind of place that made sixteen-year-old me feel safe and at home for the first time. Keeping that place affordable is the whole job.
So that's the story behind the decision. Thank you for asking hard questions, for writing back, for the vendor solidarity, for the Hashimoto's advice, and yes for the owls! Keep them coming. I'd still like the con to be a hoot.
How are you holding up? Hit reply. I read everything.
Ryan Kopf
CEO of AnimeCon.org