What is Phoenix Fan Fusion?
Phoenix Fan Fusion is Arizona’s largest pop-culture convention: three days of celebrity panels, paid autographs and photo ops, an exhibit hall of comics dealers and artists, gaming rooms, kids’ programming and the Valley’s biggest concentration of cosplay, held each year at the Phoenix Convention Center in downtown Phoenix. The 2027 edition is June 4–6, 2027, Friday through Sunday, with passes on sale in the new year. In 2026 the guest list ran from John Cena, who did a single Saturday, to Jodie Whittaker, Jamie Campbell Bower, Danny Elfman, Misha Collins and Ian Somerhalder; the 2025 bill had Simon Pegg, Marisa Tomei, Hayden Christensen, Elijah Wood and Kevin Smith.
Most of the Valley still calls it Comicon, which it was for most of its life. It began in June 2002 as Phoenix Cactus Comicon, a six-hour comic book show in a Best Western in Ahwatukee organized by Matt Solberg, with 32 dealer tables and 432 people. Solberg’s company, Square Egg Entertainment, has run every edition since, through the Glendale Civic Center, the Mesa Convention Center and, from 2010, the Phoenix Convention Center, where attendance peaked at 106,096 in 2016. The name changed to Phoenix Comic Fest for 2018, after San Diego Comic-Con began suing other shows over the words “comic con,” and to Phoenix Fan Fusion from 2019.
For a Scottsdale visitor it is the one weekend a year when downtown Phoenix belongs to people in capes, 25 minutes away by car or a direct light-rail ride, indoors and air-conditioned at the start of the hot season. It sits at the end of the May calendar, after the last spring training game and before the Valley empties out.
How to do it
Buy early, and consider the full pass. In 2026 a single day was $44 to $69 (Saturday is the expensive one), the full-event pass $109 and VIP from $599, which buys a merchandise credit, early entry to the celebrity panels and shorter autograph lines. Children 12 and under are free. Prices step up through the spring, and the full-event pass has sold out before the weekend in past years. Autographs and photo ops are separate purchases per guest, refundable only if the guest cancels. Buy online; the door takes cards only, no cash.
Ride the train. The convention center sits on the light rail, with stations along Washington and Jefferson streets at the building’s door. From Scottsdale, drive to the Dorsey/Apache or Sycamore park-and-ride in Tempe, or the Central and Camelback lot in Phoenix, and ride in; a single fare is $2 and a day pass $4. Downtown garages charge $20 to $70 on convention days and the Convention Center East and West garages fill before the exhibit hall opens. Rideshare drop-offs are at the center’s entrances.
Know the gate. Since 2017 everyone passes through metal detectors at three secured entrances (Second and Adams, Third and Monroe, Third and Washington). There is no clear-bag rule and no size limit, but every bag is searched, oversized rolling suitcases and camera bags without a press badge are refused, and outside food and drink are banned. Props follow the convention center’s list: lightsabers, wands, sonic screwdrivers, foam and plastic weapons, and armor in plastic, resin or cardboard are fine; anything resembling a firearm, metal or wooden swords, edged blades, glass or stone props and air horns are not. Email the center a photo of a borderline prop a week ahead.
Pace the weekend. Friday and Saturday the doors open at 8:30 a.m. and programming runs to 11:30 p.m.; the exhibit hall closes at 7. Friday is for the hall, when the artists have time to talk and the lines are short. Saturday is for the big panels in Ballroom 301 and the cosplay crowd. Sunday ends at 5 and is the day for kids, who are free. Wear real shoes, carry an empty bottle for the refill stations, and expect triple digits outside.
Eat somewhere else. The food hall in the North building is fine for a sandwich. Roosevelt Row is two rail stops north and full of cosplayers after 7 p.m.; Footprint Center and Chase Field are across the street if a game lines up.
From a hotel ballroom to 100,000 people
The arc is unusual for a fan convention because one person has run it the whole way. Solberg’s Phoenix Cactus Comicon drew 432 people in 2002, 780 at the Glendale Civic Center in 2003 and 2,600 when it moved to the Mesa Convention Center in 2006. The rename to Phoenix Comicon came in the run-up to 2008; the first year fully under that name, 2009, drew 7,000. The move downtown in 2010 changed the scale: 13,988 that year, 32,127 in 2012, 55,313 in 2013 and 77,818 in 2014, when the show spilled across the convention center, the Hyatt Regency, the Renaissance and the Sheraton. The 2016 peak of 106,096 made it one of the largest conventions of its kind in the country. Square Egg also launched Saboten Con, an anime show, in 2008, and a December Phoenix Fan Fest at the Glendale football stadium from 2014, cancelled in 2018.
The 2017 arrest and what it changed
On May 25, 2017, the first day of Phoenix Comicon, police arrested Mathew Sterling, 31, inside the convention center. He had three loaded handguns, a shotgun, knives and body armor, had posted online threats against officers, told police he was the Punisher and, according to the Phoenix New Times, intended to harm Jason David Frank, the Green Power Ranger, who was a guest. Within hours the convention banned every prop weapon, from sabers to giant mallets (“No exceptions,” a police spokesman said), cut the entrances to three and added screening. Full refunds were offered; cosplayers who had spent months on builds were not pleased, and the ban was partly relaxed by Friday. Attendance fell from the 2016 peak to 80,703 that weekend and 57,853 in 2018, when the show consolidated into the convention center alone and, for one year, called itself Phoenix Comic Fest. The metal detectors never left; today’s prop list is written by the convention center, not the convention.
The rebuild has been real but the numbers are muddled. The Phoenix New Times put attendance at about 48,000 in 2023 and just under 52,000 in 2024; a figure of 130,145 for 2025 circulates on Wikipedia and in later coverage, and nothing in the published record reconciles it with the earlier counts. Treat the 2016 peak as the reliable high-water mark and the show as a 50,000-person weekend that fills the hall.
Why it belongs on a Scottsdale calendar
Scottsdale has no convention of this kind and never will; the city’s event grounds are built for horses, cars and golf. Fan Fusion is where the Valley’s comics shops, costume makers, voice actors and tabletop clubs show up once a year, and the celebrity list is the only one in Arizona that competes with the coastal shows. Pair it with the Arizona Science Center two blocks east for a family day, or a Friday night on Roosevelt Row. It is a 25-minute drive, a $4 train ride, and the last big indoor weekend before summer.