Planet Comicon’s 20th Anniversary Delights, Sets New Attendance Record

Posted on April 5, 2019 by Joey L. Mills

Kansas City, Missouri was the place to be the weekend of March 29 through 31. The NCAA Men’s Basketball Midwest Regional held its Sweet 16 and Elite 8 rounds at the downtown Sprint Center. Only blocks away, tens of thousands of cosplayers, families, and fans attended Planet Comicon Kansas City‘s 20th-anniversary convention, breaking attendance records and making it the biggest and best event in the show’s history.

Planet Comicon attendees could tell right away that this year’s event was going to be a big one. While I’ve not been given the official attendance numbers at this time, discussions I had with long-time crew, volunteers, and repeat guests all felt that the attendance on Friday, March 29 rivaled that of Saturday attendance figures in recent years. As one would expect, Saturday was the busiest of the three days, with a number of attendees arriving in snowy conditions before the exhibition floor opened and staying well into the evening, when the party moved from the convention hall to Kansas City’s downtown Power and Light District.

In years past, it has been easy to look at the list of guests and identify which were likely bringing in the crowd. When around 70,000 fans set the previous attendance in 2016, it was during Stan…