Every October, the Javits Center is flooded with hundreds of thousands of fans for panels, exclusive merchandise and appearances from prominent actors at New York Comic Con. But what keeps people coming back every year isn’t just these attractions, it’s the community.

For some, NYCC is one of the few opportunities they get to see close friends every year, such as Lianna Pedersen and Christine Aucoin who have been coming to NYCC with a cosplay group for years. The group started with a core crowd of college friends that bonded over their shared interests, and they spent weekends crafting cosplays, preparing for conventions and meetups. 

“It’s one of the big things that we do as a group of really big friends,” Peterson said. “It’s a great excuse for us all to, now that we’re working adults, take a weekend off and do something to connect with all those interests that you can’t think about during the week.”

A lot of people consider NYCC to be their local con, but the four-day event draws people from all around the world. Some fans come motivated by the convention’s exclusives, but others are there to share space with their fellow fans.

“I love being able to talk to people that share the same interests, because I don’t have a lot of that in my area,” Lorna Bragg, a fan from Pennsylvania, said. “Sometimes fandoms are a little bit smaller, or you don’t really see it brought up in conversation, casually.”

For those who choose to go solo, there are plenty of opportunities throughout the weekend to connect with fellow fans. Cosplay meet-ups, held several times each day, are the perfect opportunity to get to know the people who admire the same characters as you.

NYCC is a marathon, marked by early mornings and long hours on your feet, and you’ll need a support team to handle the ups and downs of the weekend. For many people, that comes in the form of the friends and family that they chose to share the experience with.

Community isn’t just essential in the low hours, but in the high-energy moments, too.

The concourse and show floors are where connections are made. A fan passing by compliments a cosplayer’s makeup, two strangers in matching outfits stop to acknowledge each other, an attendee passes off a gift to another. These fleeting moments are what built NYCC’s tight-knit community, even as 200,000 fans flood the convention center.

Waiting around is a guarantee at NYCC. Whether you’re waiting on a food truck, the Main Stage standby queue or Sigourney Weaver’s autograph line, the hours of idle time are the perfect opportunity to bond with your friends or make new connections with strangers.

At the end of the day, the core of NYCC is the safe space it creates. Every year, friends reconnect, new relationships are formed and people come in droves to roam the hallways filled with people they can trust to be accepting of any identity.

“I just love how everybody cosplays whatever they want to cosplay, regardless of gender or anything,” said Matlock. “It’s just a really cool, open community that I found.”