Memorial Day Weekend is the unofficial start of summer, when summer concerts, outdoor festivals, summer travel, and fandom conventions begin.
For the past several years, when schools are out for summer break, my girls and I head to one of the largest southeastern conventions of animation, gaming, and comics called MomoCon.
What is MomoCon?
MomoCon is an annual 4-day multi-genre fan convention in Atlanta, Georgia. It features a variety of events and activities, including panels, workshops, gaming tournaments, cosplay contests, and more.
MomoCon attracts a diverse audience of fans of anime, manga, comics, video games, and pop culture in general. It's a great place to meet like-minded people, immerse yourself in your favorite fandoms, and have fun!
We have been attending this electrifying event since 2018, and it's been incredible to see how much this convention has grown over the years.
From a small anime club at Georgia Tech in 2004 to now being the 10th largest anime convention in North America, MomoCon was born from the hard work and dedication of a group of committed people. And each year, they strive to make each event better than the last.
My Review on MomoCon 2023
As I mentioned in a post about MomoCon in 2019, they were moving the venue to a larger space at the Georgia World Congress Center due to the massive growth, then Covid hit, making them cancel the convention for a couple of years. However, they returned strong in 2022, welcoming over 42,000 attendees.
I went during the 2022 season when the venue moved to B-Hall, which was the best decision! Less crowded and spacious. Three levels of so much stuff to do. However, we felt underwhelmed this year; more on that momentarily.
The same goes for this year's 2023 season; it was a lot of room to walk around without bumping into people.
Again, we only did two days since the first day, my oldest daughter Lauren had to work on Thursday, so we went on Friday, took a break Saturday, and finished off the convention on Sunday.
What I noticed once again was a lot of cancelations when it comes to guests and workshops. But that's out of MomoCon's control; people's schedules change.
But, to keep tabs on cancelations, I highly recommend downloading the MomoCon App. And if you downloaded it the year prior, you must update the app for the current year.
Again, Lauren's favorite part of the convention was the Exhibitor's Hall. There was so much stuff to buy that she came home with bags full of goodies. And with her having a job now, I didn't have to blow all my money; she blew her own! Winning!
My favorite part of the convention was finally joining the Shrinky Dinks Workshop. We arrived about 20 minutes before the workshop began to ensure we had a spot.
Another thing I enjoyed was being able to go right to playing computer games and video games without needing to get in line. This was shocking because we would always have to wait our turn years prior.
What was a disappointment was the panels. No topics caught our interest, so we walked outdoors to find something to do before returning to the convention. And I noticed that many attendees spent most of their time outside among the crowd of cosplayers. Was it due to the boring panel topics? Or they just wanted to hang out? Who knows!
With the Pros and Cons, we still enjoyed ourselves. It's like our yearly family reunion, seeing old and new faces once a year.
I'm happy to say that MomoCon 2023 had a record-breaking year of over 48,000 attendees! That's a 15% growth from 2022!
And they're already gearing up for 2024, and instead of starting on a Thursday, MomoCon will be on Friday, May 24th, through Monday, May 27th, 2024.
This makes more sense since people have a three-day weekend. Starting on a Thursday, people are still working or finishing up school, plus Monday is a holiday, with the majority having that day off. I can see MomoCon breaking another record for 2024!
I recommend going all 4 days; there is no way to do it all in one or two days.
And get your tickets now because the price will go up soon.
Georgia World Congress Center
285 Andrew Young International Blvd.
Atlanta, GA 30313
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