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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.


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2014-07-01T07:56:29.473
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question
conventions united-states
What's the average age of an American convention attendee?


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](https://twitter.com/Otakon) said that their main demographic is 18 to
28 year olds.

[Anime Midwest](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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"](http://www.threatormenace.com/2013/07/11/anime-midwest-dear-god-im-old)

[Anime
Boston](http://blog.thephoenix.com/BLOGS/laserorgy/archive/2010/04/05/anime-
boston-10-improving-but-not-growing.aspx) seems to be reputed for hosting a
young crowd.

[A large-scale
survey](https://sites.google.com/site/anthropomorphicresearch/past-
results/iarp-2014---3-fandom-project) 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.


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answer