Free tool
Convention Budget Calculator
Know what your next con will actually cost. Pick a convention, set your group size, and get a full breakdown of badge, hotel, travel, food, and spending money.
Planning a build for this convention?
Costumary tracks your materials, budget, timeline, and build progress all in one workspace. Start your project now and arrive at the con floor with zero last-minute panic.
Start your buildHow to budget for a convention
Convention costs sneak up on you. The badge is the easy part. It is the hotel split, the parking you forgot to check, the $16 chicken tenders at the convention center, and the artist alley prints you could not walk past that blow your budget. Most first-time con-goers underestimate their total spend by 40 to 60%.
The real cost breakdown
For a typical 3-day convention, lodging is your biggest expense (30 to 40% of total), followed by food (20 to 25%), then badge and shopping split the rest. If you are driving, gas and parking add $40 to $100 depending on distance. If flying, budget $200 to $400 for airfare plus $30 to $60 for airport-to-hotel transport each way.
How groups save money
Hotel rooms are the biggest savings lever. A $150/night room split four ways is $37.50 per person per night. Carpooling cuts gas and parking costs. Group dinners at sit-down restaurants are cheaper per person than everyone buying convention center food individually. The calculator above splits shared costs automatically when you set a group size larger than one.
First convention vs. repeat attendee
Your first convention is more expensive because you are buying things you will reuse: a rolling suitcase for cosplay transport, a repair kit, comfortable walking shoes, a portable charger. By your third convention, your base costs drop because you already own the gear. The variable costs (badge, hotel, food, shopping) stay the same.
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