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Where I live (Ireland), the convention scene is predominantly teenagers around 16/17. As I get older, I feel more out of place. I'm only 22, so I'm not old at all, but everyone else is so much more energetic and there aren't many people my age left. There are still attendees older than myself, but the number is usually in the single digits.

I watched Crunchyroll's livestream of an American convention (A-Kon maybe?), and it seemed to be a bit more diverse.

I've wanted to visit a larger convention on a visit sometime in the future, so I was wondering what the age demographic usually is for American conventions such as Anime Expo or Otakon.

giraffesyo
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Toshinou Kyouko
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    I guess it really depends on the size and content of the expo. I'm not an American myself, but based on my European experience, is that expos that are held frequently attract mainly teenagers, unless they are held privately. Bigger expos, would attract teens and twentiers mainly, unless if they are mixed with western cartoons or scifi, that seems to attract a lot older audience, like thirties and forties. They wouldn't dress up though. So my bet would be to go to the most famous conventions and check out their pictures from last years to be sure. – Peter Raeves Jul 01 '14 at 08:08
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    I would probably agree with @PeterRaeves on this one. I am Australian but here at conventions such as Supernova there seems to be a lot of teenagers when I go mainly around the age of 14-16yrs and some under 12yrs since conventions here like Supernova, you can get in for free (if under the age of 12) otherwise you pay a fee which is about my pocket money every month. Lol. – Izumi-reiLuLu Jul 01 '14 at 08:15
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    All tough I don't know how this goes at the American conventions. If you look at the animecon in the Netherlands you will also see diversity depending on the time and size of the convention. As the convention is open 24/3 for the conventions duration. And there are also special events for 18+ people, such as speed dating. – Dimitri mx Jul 01 '14 at 08:41

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I've been reading several articles and blog posts about this and I tweeted at a couple of the larger American conventions and one got back to me.

Otakon said that their main demographic is 18 to 28 year olds.

Anime Midwest is not as big as Otakon, but several places online mention the average age is about 17/18. - "Anime-Midwest: Dear God, I'm Old"

Anime Boston seems to be reputed for hosting a young crowd.

A large-scale survey seems to indicate the average age for A-Kon in Dallas is ~24

There seems to be a problem of fans graduating from anime fandom, so that the average age stays the same and cons sometimes face problems with disappointing turnouts because of the constant promotion drive.

Perhaps the larger cons attract older attendees as they might visit them instead of smaller cons because of more work commitments and etc.

Toshinou Kyouko
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    I guess this is a vicious circle, where people that *graduate* don't want to hang out with a younger crowd as they grow older and move to bigger cons. I wonder what smaller cons could do, to break this circle though. – Peter Raeves Jul 14 '14 at 11:49
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    @PeterRaeves a couple of cons have enforced 18+ limits to boost older attendance, but they literally become 1/10th of the size for the effort – Toshinou Kyouko Jul 14 '14 at 12:00
  • Might also be related to most modern anime settings being in high school or middle school. When I was in college, that didn't feel weird. Now that I'm old enough to have kids that age.... it feels weird, so I go out of my way to not watch school anime. – YetAnotherRandomUser May 04 '19 at 21:06