Saratoga Comic Con is celebrating a decade in the Spa City, and despite economic uncertainty, convention-goers came out in force over the weekend.
Saratoga Comic Con’s first show at the City Center was in April 2015. A decade later, more than 9,000 attendees pack into the space the celebrate May the 4th.
Event organizer Samuel Chase says his biggest worry was the rain.
“At a Comic Con I don’t think you can ever be prepared, you kind of just go with the punches and exactly, you know, what happens during the day, what fires to put out behind the scenes, figuratively. And you just keep it going and roll with the punches,” said Chase.
Rows of vendors selling novelty dice, collectible cards, and comic books fill the convention floor.
Bruce Chen has been hawking plastic and metal swords at conventions for the past five years, a business he got into on a whim.
These days he’s most worried about his bottom line.
“So far so good, but right now the inflation is crazy so it’s kind of harder—right now I’d say we’ll see how it’s going to go in the future,” said Chen.
President Trump’s tariffs on international goods have Chen worried – a majority of his materials are sourced from China. He’s put a hold on future orders and is focusing on just getting through the stock he already has.
“Yeah we’d pay almost double price for our products coming in, that’s crazy. It hurt us some more. We don’t know the future because we can’t take in any more because of the tariffs. I don’t know the future. President Trump could do something that—I don’t know man, seriously I have no idea,” said Chen.
It’s Joshua Trop’s birthday and he’s spent his morning taking pictures in his cosplay of a Star Wars character Gar Saxon – it features a red and black spiked helmet, a pair of blasters, and even a voice modulator.
“Making this was bad enough. I can’t even imagine if I tried to make this now with all the tariffs coming up, bro. It’s got to be crazy. You could buy a house with how much it probably cost at this point,” said Trop.
He says rising costs threaten to price some people out of the hobby and craft he and many others have come to love.
“And with all the tariffs and stuff coming up I’ve had a lot of issues with getting the tech here because most of it isn’t made here, it’s cheaper to get it made other places. And lightsabers alone are expensive enough, $400, $500 if you want a good, high-end one. So, with the tariffs and stuff it’s like doubled the prices and some people are just like, ‘you know what we just can’t sell them anymore, it’s going to be too expensive for our customers. So, that’s just a prop. So, for getting all of the resources for a costume I can’t even imagine how much that’s going to cost, if I had to guess, thousands,” said Trop.
Mike Giacoia has been selling comics since 1987. These days he’s selling his personal collection, but mostly he comes to Saratoga Comic Con for the community.
“Eveybody says, ‘seismic changes.’ There was seismic changes in the 90s, there was big changes in the 2000s. There are big changes now. In the early 90s there was a big comic book crash. And I’d say that was probably the worst situation the industry was ever in. Now it’s more—I don’t know if it’s the industry as much as it’s the general economy that people just don’t have the same discretionary funds that they had,” said Giacoia.
Cay Lafergola-Wesser is putting the final stitches on a dino nugget turned stuffed animal.
Her booth also features creatures from Studio Ghibli movies and a 3-foot-long Worm on a String.
“You know with my dino nuggies I take great pride in that fabric because no one else can find it. I’ve seen other dino nugs, none of them have looked as good as mine,” said Lafergola-Wesser.
She’s primarily an English teacher and not sure how much longer she’ll be able to afford to make her signature dino nugget plushies.
“So, I’ve been really lucky where I’ve got a crapton stored up. But yeah, that fabric comes from China and I’m terrified of running out of my stockpile. Luckily my Worm on a String comes from Canada so, hopefully that won’t be too bad. So, I should be fine through the summer. But I am nervous after that and I’m hoping some things kind of rollback or change,” said Lafergola-Wesser.
Carlos Gonzalez has been selling Funko-Pops, collectible figurines of all sorts of pop-culture icons, for six years.
He says even as prices fluctuate, there’s nothing like the face-to-face interactions you get at Comic Con.
“Oh, you can’t buy that. That’s the main thing about the Comic Con, you cannot put a price on that,” said Gonzalez.
