Why Pensacon Has Gone Downhill - And What Can Be Done About It

Editor's Note: Following the publication of this article, Pensacon's media director Julio Diaz engaged in an extensive Reddit AMA addressing these concerns. Read the follow-up: Pensacon Responds: Inside the Uphill Battle to Save Pensacola's Biggest Convention

I need to get something off my chest, and yeah, this might ruffle some feathers.

I genuinely love Pensacon. Seven out of the last eight years, I and the family made the pilgrimage downtown, geeked out over celebrity panels, dropped way too much money on selfies with celebrities I'll probably never see again, and walked away with that warm, fuzzy feeling that only comes from spending a weekend surrounded by people who get you. The kind of folks who won't judge you for knowing the precise production order of every Star Trek episode, or for showing up dressed as a Mandalorian in 90-degree Florida humidity.

But here's the thing: Something's broken, and it looks like I'm not alone in thinking this.

The Venue Problem

The Pensacola Bay Center is too small. There, I said it. Everyone's thinking it, but the organizers keep dancing around it like it's some kind of taboo subject.

Commissioner Jeff Bergosh put it bluntly: "What we just saw with Pensacon, we have outgrown the Bay Center. It's time for something better, it's time for something modern. The citizens want it."

He's not wrong. The facility's 38 years old. A recent assessment basically admitted that the $200,000 annual capital budget "would have been sufficient in 1985, but today is no longer adequate." When your air conditioning goes out during big events - and yeah, that's happened - you've got a problem.

Meanwhile, Mobile just announced a brand new $300 million, 10,000-seat civic center just sixty miles away. You think touring acts and big-name guests won't notice?

Update: Pensacon's leadership has since responded directly to venue concerns, explaining the difficult reality of infrastructure constraints and their ongoing efforts to expand beyond the Bay Center's limitations.

Sardines in Cosplay

This isn't just about optics or competition with Mobile, though. It's about the actual experience of attending Pensacon.

One first-timer this year described their group - ten people ranging from a 1-year-old to a 36-year-old - as "cattle in a herd." They waited two hours in line. Not inside, outside. On a dirt median near the cemetery, while protesters with graphic signs yelled about abortion through megaphones. Their kids - 4, 5, and 6-year-old girls - were confused and exhausted before they even got inside.

Two hours. For wristbands.

And here's the kicker: when they finally reached the booth, nobody even scanned their tickets. Volunteers just took their printouts, asked how many were in the group, and handed over orange wristbands. The whole careful pre-purchase system? Apparently meaningless.

Once inside, things didn't improve. "No one understood where to go, where we COULD go, nor where we could NOT go," they wrote. The schedule? Only accessible through an app that wouldn't load because cell reception in the building is abysmal. The big screens in the arena that could've displayed upcoming events? Just... nothing useful.

They left feeling "robbed of their time" and "robbed of their will to spend money."

The Scheduling Fiasco

I've heard this story more times than I can count now: someone buys a ticket specifically to see a particular guest, plans their whole day around it, shows up - and discovers the schedule changed without notice.

One guy spent close to $70 specifically to see Steve Downes, the voice of Master Chief. He bought a Sunday ticket because that's what the website showed. Except Downes got moved to Saturday. No notification, no email, no text. When he asked around, staff basically told him he should've downloaded the app.

What app? There was barely any mention of it on the website.

"For my first year, this is very disappointing," he wrote. "This will be my last year."

Following this article's publication, Pensacon's Julio Diaz addressed the scheduling challenges in detail, acknowledging where things went wrong and outlining specific improvements for future events.

The App Is Trash

Information is king at a convention like this. You need to know where people are, what time panels start, which rooms are accessible with which ticket type. Basic stuff.

The Pensacon app, according to pretty much everyone I've talked to, is a disaster. Bad maps. Wrong information. Schedules that don't match reality. When weather forced changes this year, the app wasn't updated. Social media wasn't updated. People wandered around for ages trying to find vendors and artists who'd been moved to random rooms without any posted notice.

One volunteer supervisor couldn't even locate guests who were supposedly present at the convention.

If you're running an event for 30,000 - 40,000 people, communication shouldn't be this hard.

Pensacon has since acknowledged the app visibility issue and committed to making the app more prominent on their website and communications for future events.

Remember When the Grand Hotel Was Right There?

There's this tall building - the tallest in Pensacola, actually - sitting dark across from the Bay Center: the Grand Hotel. It used to host Pensacon celebrity guests and events. People loved it. The historic train station inside made for incredible cosplay photo opportunities. The bar and lobby were social hubs where the convention spilled over into something communal and more intimate.

Then Hurricane Sally hit in 2020, and the building's been damaged and closed ever since. The owners won't respond to anyone. Their website's still up with a disconnected phone number. Emails go into a void.

It's not Pensacon's fault the Grand Hotel is abandoned, obviously. But its absence matters. The convention lost overflow space, lost atmosphere, lost that particular magic that made downtown feel alive for three days each year.

The Economic Stakes Are Real

Here's the uncomfortable truth: Pensacon isn't just a fun weekend, it's a major economic engine for this region.

Last year alone, the event generated over $2 million in direct economic impact. Since 2014, Visit Pensacola reports nearly $30 million total. That's hotel rooms, restaurants, bars, grocers, parking, tolls on the Bob Sikes Bridge - money flowing through the local economy from people who came here specifically for this convention.

Julio Diaz, Pensacon's director of media and guest relations, gets this. "It's about the community," he says. "Both in terms of the community in fandom... but also the community of the Pensacola Bay area."

But community goodwill isn't infinite. You can't keep cramming people into an inadequate venue, failing to communicate schedule changes, running a broken app, and expecting everyone to just shrug it off because hey, at least we have this event at all.

Another Pensacon attendee said Pensacola is "really great" and everyone here is "so nice.", which is lovely. But nice doesn't fix systemic problems. Nice doesn't make two-hour lines acceptable. Nice doesn't help when you've paid $70 to see someone who got moved to a different day, effectively nullifying your reason for being there in the first place.

What Needs to Change

I'm not trying to burn this thing down. I want Pensacon to succeed. I've got memories here - genuinely good, warm a fuzzy memories. Celebrity guests who took time to answer questions and tell stories. Incredible costumes that people clearly spent significant time and money crafting. That particular electricity that only happens when thousands of people who share obscure passions gather in one place.

But something has to give.

The venue issue is real. Whether it's major upgrades to the Bay Center (the county is apparently looking at plans with million-dollar price tags and multi-year construction timelines) or finding additional overflow space, this cannot continue. Commissioner Bergosh says tourism dollars would cover the costs. Great. Make it happen.

Communication has to improve dramatically. The app needs to work. Schedule changes need to go out immediately - via push notification, email, text, and social media, all of it. When you're charging people $70+ for a single day, they deserve to know if the person they came to see moved to a different day.

Lines need better management. Pre-purchase tickets should mean something. Having people wait two hours outside in the dirt while folks who showed up to buy tickets at the door breeze through faster is backwards. It punishes your most loyal, organized and committed customers.

Staff and volunteers need better training and information. If a supervisor can't tell an attendee where a guest is located, that's a failure upstream. Everyone representing Pensacon should have real-time, accurate information.

The Window Is Closing

Here's what worries me most: I keep seeing people say variations of "this was my first year, and it'll be my last."

Conventions live or die on repeat attendance. On word of mouth. On people going home and telling friends how amazing the experience was. Right now, too many people are going home and posting about disaster experiences on Facebook and Reddit.

"I won't be surprised if this dies out soon," one recent attendee wrote. "Crowds were pretty sparse, and the guest list was... a list."

That's harsh, and maybe unfair, but perception matters. And if people believe Pensacon is declining, that belief becomes self-fulfilling. Fewer attendees mean less revenue. Less revenue means fewer big-name guests. Fewer guests mean even fewer attendees. The spiral only goes one direction.

Pensacon has been doing this for twelve years. It's beloved. It's put Pensacola on the map for a community that previously had nowhere nearby to celebrate this stuff. The airport literally changes its name to "Pensacola Intergalactic Airport" for a week and a half each year. Restaurants like The Fish House build elaborate Harry Potter decorations starting in August - handmade wands, life-sized Dementors, Platform 9¾ photo ops.

This city wants Pensacon to work.

But love alone won't sustain it. At some point, operational competence has to match the ambition. The people running this thing need to hear the complaints - really hear them - and make concrete changes. Not just "we're sorry you had a negative experience" form responses.

Update: The organizers did hear these complaints. In a rare display of transparency, Pensacon's media director engaged directly with critics in an extensive public discussion. Read the full follow-up: Pensacon Responds: Inside the Uphill Battle to Save Pensacola's Biggest Convention

Because next year, if things don't improve? Some of us won't be coming back. And that would be a genuine loss - for the fans, for the community, and for Pensacola itself.

I've been attending Pensacon for seven of the last eight years. I'm rooting for it, but I'm also tired of making excuses.