ATL Comic & Pop Culture Convention won’t be back in 2026
ATL Comic & Pop Culture Convention is not coming back in 2026 after disappointing attendance figures this year.
Organizer Dan Farr, who also runs fan conventions in Salt Lake City, Indianapolis and Tampa Bay, Florida, said ticket sales this past summer did not cover costs at the Georgia World Congress Center.
“I love Atlanta, and we have not completely abandoned the possibility of coming back,” Farr told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an exclusive interview. “But we haven’t been able to get the traction we’ve gotten in the other cities.”
July’s convention featured 70 celebrities, including Kiefer Sutherland (“24″), Rainn Wilson (“The Office”), Mira Sorvino (“Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion”), Priscilla Presley (“The Naked Gun”), Holly Marie Combs (“Charmed”), Frank Grillo (“Tulsa King”) and Wil Wheaton (“Star Trek: The Next Generation”). There were also panel discussions, a gaming room and cosplay contests.
Farr said he was hoping for at least 40,000 attendees over three days but drew only about 28,000.
He had moved the convention from February to July this year, which may have hurt attendance because so many people go on vacation that month, he acknowledged. That also placed his convention squarely between two more prominent conventions: anime-focused MomoCom, which drew nearly 60,000 visitorsover Memorial Day weekend, and DragonCon, which brought in 75,000 people this past Labor Day weekend.
He had been encouraged when attendance hit 32,000 in 2024, the best number since he took over the convention in 2021. (A previous company he bought out started what was originally called ATL Comic Convention in 2018.)
One celebrity who may have helped attendance in 2024 was Norman Reedus of “The Walking Dead” fame, who lived at Serenbe in Chattahoochee Hills for several years while shooting the show in metro Atlanta. Reedus was a major draw at the now-defunct Walker Stalker convention, which ran for several years in the 2010s when “The Walking Dead” was at its peak popularity.
Farr said Sutherland, his biggest get in 2025, brought in huge crowds at his Tampa Bay convention but wasn’t able to replicate that success in Atlanta.
“These conventions can just burn through money,” he said. “Decorations alone can easily cost $100,000, and AV costs are between $70,000 to $150,000. Catering bills for the green room for talent was $40,000. We spent more than $300,000 on advertising.”
Early advance sales for the 2025 convention were strong, he said, but last-second and walk-up traffic didn’t match 2024.
“I think if we do come back,” he said, “we will come back in February.”
He didn’t have time to pivot to February 2026, so the earliest he could come back is February 2027.
Kim Allison, Georgia World Congress Center vice president of sales, said she told Farr’s people that July 2026 would have been a challenging time to bring in a convention because of the FIFA World Cup.
“We have other future dates on hold for them in other years if they want to make it work,” Allison said. “We’d love to have them back.”
Farr’s convention is not be confused with the more modest Atlanta Comic Convention, which has been around for three decades and is run by Wes Tillander.
Every quarter at the Atlanta Marriott Northeast near Emory University, Tillander holds a show with 40 comic book and art dealers that draws about 500 to 800 people. The next one is scheduled for Jan. 25.
In a 2023 interview with the AJC, Tillander said at least three other companies since 1994 have come to Atlanta using similar names to promote their conventions, none of which lasted more than a handful of years.
“They go away,” he said, “and I’m still here. I have no animosity. I’m not big enough to bother them.”
And whatever confusion happens largely doesn’t bug him: “I only get annoyed if someone has a bad time at the other show and thinks it’s me.”
About the Author
Rodney Ho writes about entertainment for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution including TV, radio, film, comedy and all things in between. A native New Yorker, he has covered education at The Virginian-Pilot, small business for The Wall Street Journal and a host of beats at the AJC over 20-plus years. He loves tennis, pop culture & seeing live events.
