MegaCon, short for Mega Convention, is a large speculative fiction convention that caters to the comic book, sci-fi, anime, fantasy, RPG, and gaming communities, often occurring in spring at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. The convention is tied with New York Comic Con as the largest fan convention event in North America with an internally reported attendance of 200,000 Internal figures from FanExpo and generating an economic impact of 405 million dollars in 2026.
History Founding The first comic book convention held in the Orlando area was OrlandoCon, held annually from 1974 to 1994. Regular guests included C. C. Beck, Floyd Gottfredson, and Hal Foster. A competing show, "Mega-Show" was founded by James Breitbiel in December 1993 at the Holiday Inn International Drive (Now the Avanti Palms) Mega-Show would occur a few times a year with a larger show "MegaCon", also by Breitbiel, debuting in 1995 at the Orlando Expo Center (Now the UCF Center for Emerging Media). Along with the new show, there was a smaller sister show, Tampa Mega-Show. The convention was acquired by the Tampa-based publisher CrossGen in 1999 with the smaller Mega-Shows being discontinued,Weiland, Jonah. "Battling Conventions? Talking with the NY Comic Con and MegaCon Organizers," Comic Book Resources (June 10, 2005). with Elizabeth Widera brought on to run the show in 2000 and Breitbiel moving on to become CrossGen's Marketing and Distribution Director. During this period, from 2000 to 2003, MegaCon heavily promoted CrossGen products as the show continued to grow. After being the venue once in 1997, the Orange County Convention Center has since 2001, been the host of the convention. The new location allowed MegaCon to be the home of the long-running "Paranoia LIVE!" from 2001 to 2019. LARP, based on Mongoose Publishing's Paranoia.Paranoia LIVE! In 2002, the logo was changed to one with rounded rectangular letters with a capital "G" in lowercase size.
2003 introduced after hours entertainment at the convention. This expanded to offsite locations in 2006. In late 2003, Widera purchased the convention from the failing CrossGen, which was restructuring"CrossGen Sells MegaCon To the Show's Director," ICv2 (November 19, 2003). (the publisher went bankrupt in 2004). Widera, who is a board member of the comics charity The Hero Initiative, ran the show along with her daughter Christine Alger until 2016.
In 2007, MegaCon hosted the first live presentation of the Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards. This was followed in August 2008 with the convention hosting the first inaugural Project Fanboy Awards ceremony, awarding authors, writers and publishers with honors voted on by Internet users on the Project Fanboy website.Project Fanboy Awards to be announced at MegaCon Following 2009, the Project Fanboy Awards event was discontinued.
In September 2008, MegaCon headquarters moved from Safety Harbor to Live Oak, Florida, although the actual convention remains in Orlando. In 2009, in addition to the main show, held February 27–March 1, convention organizers produced a "mini-MegaCon" held August 22–23 featuring a number of actors from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV show.
Fan Expo
On April 7, 2015, it was announced that MegaCon had been sold to Informa. The con now operates under the auspices of Informa's Fan Expo group from Toronto and a regional office in Sarasota, although it has maintained the MegaCon branding. Following MegaCon 2015 it was announced that for the first time MegaCon will be extended to 4 days in 2016. as well as another mini-MegaCon event, "MegaCon Fan Days" on November 21–22, 2015. Shortly after MegaCon 2016, MegaCon Tampa Bay was announced for October 28–30. MegaCon Tampa last happened in 2018 and has not returned since due to the increasing sizes of convention rivals Tampa Bay Comic Con and Metrocon as well as the size limitations of the Tampa Convention Center. Stan Lee made a surprise appearance at MegaCon Tampa Bay 2017, his last at MegaCon, to raise funds for those affected by Hurricane Irma weeks prior.
Post-pandemic era The 2020 event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially planned to be held April 16–19 and June 4–7, it was replaced by a smaller "limited edition" "mini-MegaCon" restricted to 25,000 in attendance with the next main event to be held on March 18–21, 2021. These dates were also cancelled with the next date, August 12–15 being a return to operations, though masks were mandated. During COVID, the show's website was redesigned with a new logo introduced as part of a larger rebranding of FanExpo with the text forming an arch. The 2021 event was plagued with many guest cancellations due to pandemic-caused filming conflicts affecting many including Elijah Wood, Brendan Fraser, and James Marsters who were to be among the headline celebrities of the event.
2022 featured a return to normal operations with Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Dominic Monaghan, and Billy Boyd, the Hobbits of the Lord of the Rings, reuniting on stage as well as Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes of the Jay and Silent Bob show, Brendan Fraser, and Gina Carano being other highlight guest appearances. MegaCon inaugurated FanExpo's partnership with virtual auction site WhatNot, featuring a Virtual MegaCon with virtual celebrity signings, comic artist sketch streams, and streams of cosplay contests, as well as a WhatNot booth. Numerous traffic issues in the surrounding areas due to record attendance reached local news headlines. Several tiers of tickets including family packages and youth tickets were sold out on Saturday. Surpassing Comic Con International's attendance cap of 130,000, MegaCon became the second most attended fan convention in the United States after New York Comic Con. The last day of the 2022 convention hosted a memorial service for the late comic artist George Perez, who was a frequent guest at the convention.
2023 introduced advanced paid parking from several parking lots as well as shuttles to the convention as a way to alleviate traffic issues. A Wednesday pre-launch party was added to the afterhours party line up at ICON Park. Tickets for the 2024 event went on sale the day after the 2023 event ended, a change in tradition from tickets going on sale 5–6 months prior to the event. The 2023 event was plagued by overcrowding in celebrity areas and some hospitalizations occurred while a small fire also occurred in one of the food stands but no injuries resulted from it. The 2024 event did not see a repeat of these woes due to a redesigned celebrity area. 2024 debuted an afterhours takeover of Universal Islands of Adventure theme park.
Late 2020s In 2025, MegaCon expanded their exhibit hall to take up the entire North/South Concourse, an area of 950,000 sqft, surpassing New York Comic Con's Javits Center as the largest used exhibition hall of a fan convention in North America. Tattoo vendors on the vendor floor were discontinued after being a mainstay of the exhibit hall. The theme park afterhours event from the previous year was expanded to both parks at Universal Orlando resort. A few events were added to the nearby Rosen Centre hotel including a breakfast event featuring Ashley Eckstein.
In 2026, the show further expanded by moving into nearly the entire West building including 1 million sqft of its exhibit hall space, making it the first comic convention in North America to surpass of used exhibit hall space. The show announced a large Lord of the Rings cast lineup which included several members of Wētā Workshop in a partnership of merchandise. Reaching over 200,000 attendees, the convention rivaled New York Comic Con in attendance to become the largest fan convention in North America.
Dates and guests Notability guidelines for listing guests
Actors and voice actors are to be listed. Comic guests may be listed only if listed on MegaCon website or noted to have attended pre-2000. YouTubers may be listed only if they have reached the 100,000 subscribers eligible for a Silver Creator Award. Music performers may be listed if on MegaCon website as a guest. Book Authors may be listed only if on MegaCon website as a guest. Cosplay guests, tattoo artists, other artists, and retailers may not be listed. Guests partnered with vendor booths may be listed if they are actors/voice actors, renowned comic creators, or have met the 1 million subscribers eligible for a Gold Creator Award.
Mega-Show Mega Show was the predecessor to MegaCon and 1995–99, was operated alongside MegaCon as a mini comics show by the same organizers. Dates Building City Guests December 12, 1993 Holiday Inn, 6515 International Dr Orlando February 6, 1994 Holiday Inn Orlando February 20, 1994 Holiday Inn University Center, 316 W Tennessee St Tallahassee Martin Nodell May 1, 1994 Marriott Hotel, 8001 International Dr Orlando May 15, 1994 Ramada Resort, 820 E Busch Blvd. Tampa May 22, 1994 Holiday Inn University Center Tallahassee July 10, 1994 Colony Hotel (formerly Ramada Resort) Tampa William Tucci July 24, 1994 Marriott Hotel Orlando Colleen Doran September 25, 1994 Colony Hotel Tampa Buzz October 16, 1994 Marriott Hotel Orlando November 6, 1994 Colony Hotel Tampa Howard Chaykin December 11, 1994 Marriott Hotel Orlando Marat Mychaels, Tim Townsend June 4, 1995 Colony Hotel Tampa Miran Kim July 23, 1995 Marriott Hotel Orlando Adam Hughes, Brian Stelfreeze September 17, 1995 Best Western Resort (formerly Colony Hotel) Tampa Ben Dunn November 5, 1995 Marriott Hotel Orlando Ricky Carralero November 19, 1995 Marriott Hotel Orlando J. Scott Campbell June 2, 1996 Best Western Resort Tampa Michael Turner, David Wohl July 28, 1996 Marriott Hotel Orlando Dark One September 29, 1996 Best Western Resort Tampa Tim Townsend December 8, 1996 Marriott Hotel Orlando August 3, 1997 Best Western Resort Tampa Brett Booth, Jessica Ruffner September 21, 1997 Marriott Hotel Orlando Adam Hughes, Jason Pearson November 23, 1997 Best Western Resort Tampa David Mack July 26, 1998 Best Western Resort Tampa Matt "Batt" Banning November 15, 1998 Best Western Resort Tampa Walter McDaniel July 25, 1999 Travelodge (formerly Best Western) Tampa Bob Layton
1990s and 2000s Early years and CrossGen