Fan Expo Boston 2026 Part 1
Like last year, I was only at Fan Expo Boston this year for one day, Saturday. Unlike last year, the event producer for the con reached out to us to see if we wanted to be the official cosplay photographers for 2026. Alas, after much negotiation we just couldn’t come to terms, so I put in for press passes, and was approved in short order.
Since the press ticket booth didn’t open until the show floor opened, there was no point getting to the con early, so I showed up just before 10 a.m., quickly got my badge and found my spot. Like last year it was on the second floor, but unlike last year when I was near the cosplay contest judging area (and far removed from the traffic of the convention) this year I found a great spot right by the escalators just above the main entrance.
It turned out that my location had enough foot traffic that I was able to get enough photos for three galleries, even though I wasn’t set up and shooting until about 11 a.m. Part of that delay was that I had to set up and explain how to use our DJI Pocket Osmo camera to my assistant and our videographer, animesucks. Stay tuned to our YouTube channel to see those in a few weeks. Also, I initially thought I was pushing the edge of needing four galleries when I offloaded the photos to my PC, but I forgot that I was having flash exposure problems all day, so when I deleted all of the failed photos, I was down to just three galleries.
In fact, my chosen location got enough foot traffic that I ran into a problem I usually only got at PAX East or New York Comic Con when I chose a spot to sit and take photos — a few times I had to ask someone who was sitting against the wall of the corner in front of me to move their bags to their other side to be out of my frame. While that level of traffic was good for me, it was also an indicator of how crowded the main hall was. I heard, pretty early on, from a few people who had been through the show floor and were done with it for the day, it was so packed.
I’ll tell you about the big downside of the spot I picked in the next article, so stay tuned.
Cosplayers in this first of three galleries include animesucks, jacky.ha.313, kenneth_pereira, armanithomas, kateryna.demers, cha_dyl, riddleyleenick, therosalieivy, hector_cosplays, dimitrionixx, mchne_v, n0xferatu, and many more.
We use Smugmug to present cosplay photo galleries. To view the entire gallery, just click on the image below. If you are pictured in any of our galleries, feel free to download the images and use them non-commercially on social media, with appropriate credit.
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Also, High-res images for sale is back!
If you are pictured in any of our galleries and want the high-resolution (3200 pixels at its widest by 300dpi) download for yourself, we can make it available via a private Smugmug link, for $10 per image. Just send an email to editor AT nerdcaliber.com. Currently limited to only photos taken by FirstPerson Shooter (aka Rodney Brown).
