Emerald City Comic Con 2026: Why we had a good time!

Con season has come around once again. For my wife and me, our first con of the year was Emerald City Comic Con, held over two buildings in downtown Seattle. And for us, we had a great time. Here are the highlights.

This year’s edition featured a star-studded lineup of guests, including the cast of Critical Role, Hayden Christensen, William Shatner, comic-book legend Chris Claremont, and so much more that I would gum up this article listing everyone.

One of the highlights before we even got to the con this year was the announcement of a panel featuring The Boys actors Karl Urban and Laz Alonso. They were the first large con of the weekend, early on Friday morning. Even before the panel started, the host, The Show Before the Show, had the crowd laughing, singing, and dancing. It was a great warm-up to get everyone’s energy flowing.

Karl and Laz were so engaging, answering all the questions with thought and caring, making each person who asked feel seen and heard. Except whenever they were asked about season 5 of The Boys. The trailer dropped the night before, so the room was a buzz with what the final season was going to bring us. Karl and Laz both made comments about the fans not being ready for what is to come, but left it vague enough not to give anything away. They were a great start to the weekend.

We also attended Jamie Campbell Bower’s (Stranger Things, Sweeney Todd, Twilight) panel on Saturday morning. He was great. Playful, funny, and thoughtful. He spent about a third of the panel talking about his music, which I knew nothing about until then. I gave it a listen once I got home. He might make it mainstream in music someday.

Our number one panel of the weekend was Convention Horror Stories with Conan the Barbarian writer Jim Zub. My wife and I were the last two people in the room, and we are so glad we got in. Jim spent an hour plus telling two stories about his travels around the world to different comic conventions. He could be a stand-up comedian, but decided to write comics instead. Some of the stories about his time at India Comic Con made you squirm in your seat as you laughed uncontrollably. My face hurt from laughing and smiling the rest of the day.

Like every con you attend, your experience is going to be different from everyone else’s. That is also true of this year’s version of ECCC. I have heard some rumblings of issues with guests and attendees, but nothing official. I have also heard about some line management issues in the autograph area. We weren’t over there at all, the entire four days. So again, I can’t speak on the issues I have read online. But with any large con, managing lines is always a struggle. I know on Saturday the line wrapped around the building twice for will-call. The line management out there was very well handled with multiple people, with bullhorns, directing people the correct way to go.

Emerald City is not the only large con to use more than one building. The con is spread across the old convention hall, Arch Building, and the new hall, Summit Building. The large panels, celebrity signings, and photo ops, and some vendors were in the Arch Building. Then the Summit Building held the smaller panels, artist alley (which was an entire floor), the vendor hall, and the tavern. Getting back and forth was ok, for the most part. It wasn’t a struggle, even at the height of foot traffic on Saturday, mid-morning. I think the con could possibly work something out with the city to close 9th Ave, to make the trip between the two buildings simpler and safer.

The Tavern was a nice expansion from when we last attended in 2024. One side had a large gaming area and an attached tavern for those who wished to partake in an adult beverage. Then the other side had a stage and another tavern attached. There, they had a talent show, stage performances, and evening parties. It was a great place to rest your feet while you wait for your next panel and make new friends.

One issue with these two rooms is that they took away from some of the guests having panels. Bryce Dallas Howard, Kyle MacLachlan, and some others didn’t even have Q&A panels, which is always a major draw for us.

It would be nice to have a medium-sized panel room for these types of guests. I wouldn’t be surprised if that happens next year.

The cosplay got better and better as the weekend went by. We were on site from Thursday morning until late Saturday night. Each day saw another level of detail in folks’ cosplays. Cosplay always adds another level of excitement for attendees. There were a ton of Vox Machina cosplayers because of Critical Role being there, but also tons of Star Wars, Arcane, Disney characters, and just about every other fandom you could think of. We did not attend the cosplay championship, but word has it that it was an all-timer.

No convention ever goes as planned. What is TikTok saying? “Make a plan. Execute the plan. Expect the plan to go off the rails. Improvise!” Well, that is what we did. We had a few things we 100% wanted to go to or see, some stuff we wanted to maybe see, and then a handful of other things that, if we got to them, we would be happy. Every day is different, and that is ok. We spent a ton of time on both the vendor floor and artist alley, and we still missed stuff. Looking at the photos other people have posted, I kept saying, “Wait. Where was that?” Which I think is a good sign that the convention is doing well.

Next year’s edition will be March 4th through the 7th, 2027. If you get the chance, you should go. Maybe start your cosplans now.

Author: Sean Miley

I’d rather find the things that I like about a story, movie, or tv show, than lead with negativity. I love Star Wars, Doctor Who, MCU, comic book and conventions.

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