The 2018 Convention Artist Survey collected 987 artist responses regarding financial and other data for over 300 conventions in North America — how much they made, how much they spent, how far they traveled, how they rated staff communication and organisation, and so on.

And the corresponding report turning that data into relevant charts and graphs is finally done. Snag the 2018 report for $5 or more!

The survey and report still skews heavily towards anime conventions, but 2018 marks the first time there were enough responses for two furry conventions to get individual reports! Two comic cons also got individual reports, one new and one returning. I removed a few of the travel-related pages and combined some charts for brevity. Most of the travel data here didn’t change significantly between 2017 and 2018, so you can refer back to the 2017 report if you’re curious and want the visuals.

2018 Con Artist Survey genre representation.

The 2018 Report includes:

• 24 pages of overall analysis
  • Including such graphs as Gross Revenue by Experience, by Percentile, by Convention Genre, by Convention Size, by Region, by State/Province, by Primary Product, by Artist Recommendation, and many more divisions; Convention Ratings by Size and Genre, 2015-2018 comparison of Average Gross Revenue, Top Cons by Average Gross Revenue, by Overall Rating, and much more!
• 37 pages of individual con data
  • 18 conventions qualified for individual reports: A-Kon, Anime Central, Anime Expo, Anime Los Angeles, Anime North, Biggest Little Fur Con, Calgary Comics & Entertainment Expo, Crunchyroll Expo, FanimeCon, Further Confusion, Otakon, Otakuthon, Rose City Comic Con, SacAnime Summer, SacAnime Winter, Sakura-Con, San Japan, and Youmacon
• 84 total tables
• 139 total charts and graphs

Unsure the report will be useful to you? Get any of the prior years’ reports for a minimum of $0.

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The Convention Artist Survey Report for 2017 is finally done!

For 2017, 782 responses were collected for over 300 different conventions in 49 states and provinces. A new record!

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Well, so much for finishing mid-February, but it’s still earlier than last year!

The 2016’s survey netted 650 responses (down from 2015) for over 250 different conventions (way up from 2015!).

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After many delays due to a hectic convention season, the 2015 Convention Artist Survey results are here!

Following 2014’s survey and report, the 2015 survey was expanded to include more questions and to accept responses for all North American conventions, regardless of size or genre. In total, 670 responses were collected for over 160 different conventions. That is a lot of data!

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For 2013 and 2014, Devastator Press and The Beat put together a survey for comic convention exhibitors about costs and profits. The results are pretty interesting. I really wanted to see similar data for artists at anime conventions though. Though they’re two sides of the same coin and are similar in many ways, there are still huge differences in the convention cultures at comic and anime shows, and I wanted to see the figures for it.

So I made and ran a survey myself and used the Artist Alley Network International and How To Be a Con Artist communities as launch pads to collect data. The survey was live for about a month and collected 195 responses for 13 conventions from an unknown number of artists. The results are compiled in the first PDF linked below, along with some of my observations and commentary.

I know there are many more ways to analyze and sort the data than what I’ve done though, so the raw data is also provided, sorted by convention, and sans timestamps to maximize the anonymity of respondents.

The 2015 survey is now also live, with some additional and modified questions, which will hopefully help provide additional insight!

The Important Stuff:

• Permalink to 2014 Survey Report
• Permalink to 2014 Survey Raw Data
• 2015 Survey!

I think I originally had a lot more to say, but I’m currently in the middle of three back-to-back conventions and am very tired. :’) I really wanted to get this report published though, especially since we just had one of the biggest convention weekends of the year! I hope folks will find this report enlightening and that there will be more respondents for the 2015 survey. More data is better data!