Volume 273
Issue 14
04/06/2026
Following a six-year hiatus, BookCon will return to its former home, New York City’s Javits Center, April 18–19. The consumer show, which was among the first large-scale fan events catering to younger genre readers, was “retired” by organizer ReedPop in 2020 due to the pandemic. This year’s event is expected to draw some 25,000 attendees over two days, as well as around 250 exhibitors.
Jennifer Martin, who headed up the earlier iteration of BookCon as well as the now-defunct trade show BookExpo, is serving as event director of the reborn BookCon, which she said will lean even more into its strengths as a show that embraces the role of publishing in pop culture. BookCon, she says, is “not just about books themselves—it’s really about the entire ecosystem of storytelling.”
ReedPop launched BookCon in 2014 as a New York Comic Con–inspired consumer day at BookExpo, and later as a standalone event that followed BookExpo. (ReedPop also produces New York Comic Con.) The show is returning at a moment when fandom around genre fiction has reached a fever pitch.
In the past several years, BookTok has mobilized readers of romance, fantasy, and romantasy as never before, with authors Rebecca Yarros and Sarah J. Maas selling millions of books annually. What’s more, fans are clearly itching for in-person events, from the midnight release parties for Yarros’s Onyx Storm that swept the nation last year to the ongoing boom in book clubs and reading parties among Gen-Z readers.
“We’ve been very intentional about reflecting today’s reading culture and including the influence of digital communities like BookTok, and bringing those things into real-life experiences,” Martin says, noting that much of BookCon’s programming is aimed at millennials and zoomers who are tapped into the bookish corners of social media.
Like its earlier edition, the revived BookCon will feature book signings and panel discussions, including conversations on page-to-screen adaptations, genre tropes, book bans, and, of course, Heated Rivalry. Romance, fantasy, and romantasy are the hot topics for most of the event’s panels, along with thrillers, horror, and sci-fi. The program lineup also includes a series of author spotlights featuring such genre titans as Tomi Adeyemi, Leigh Bardugo, Alyssa Cole, R.F. Kuang, Veronica Roth, and Kennedy Ryan.
But Martin is perhaps most excited about BookCon’s more interactive offerings, she says. “In addition to those panels and author talks, we’ve built a really robust slate of hands-on and community-driven experiences,” including book trivia, a “fantasy ball,” a pajama party, a poetry slam, and workshops on book binding, sprayed edges, fantasy mapmaking, and crafting “bookish mocktails.”
“We’ve really kind of shifted from a passive to a more engaged show that we’re building for people, so they’re really participating,” she adds.
Luckily, participation hasn’t been a concern for this year’s BookCon, which sold out not long after tickets became available last fall. If anything, organizers are doing their best to handle the high demand. In the lead-up to the show, some ticketholders have vented on social media about difficulties securing reservations to certain book signings and other events.
“We’ve obviously seen the frustration, and we understand and hear people when it comes to that,” Martin says, while also stressing the importance of preshow online reservation systems. “It’s a better route than just sort of leaving it to chance and letting people rush to things on site. You know, it’s a safety thing in our mind.”
BookCon’s reservation system isn’t the only thing that’s caused a stir ahead of the show. In early February, dozens of authors slated to appear at BookCon—including TJ Alexander, Olivie Blake, R.F. Kuang, Casey McQuiston, and Kennedy Ryan—published an open letter denouncing ReedPop parent company RELX, whose subsidiary LexisNexis currently has a contract with ICE. In recent weeks, such authors as Carmen Maria Machado and Sabaa Tahir announced they had dropped out of the event. In a statement shared to social media, ReedPop stressed that it operates independently from LexisNexis and “do[es] not sell customer information” to ICE.
Despite the hiccups, anticipation around BookCon remains high among both consumers and the trade. For publishing professionals, the show’s revival augurs well for book culture and presents an opportunity to harness the enthusiasm—and buying power—of legions of chronically online readers. And fans, it would appear, are jumping at the opportunity to participate in an event that’s not pigeonholed by one specific genre but rather lets them to connect with fellow bibliophiles of all stripes.
Indeed, the scope and interactivity of the new and improved BookCon is what makes it special, Martin says. “I think bringing that full fan convention mindset at the scale of the shows that we do, like Comic Con, with so many enriching different experiences, sets us apart.”
Read more from our BookCon show guide feature.
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