Comic-Con generates over $165M for the San Diego economy each year

San Diego Comic-Con packs 460,000 square feet with more than 700 events

Held at the San Diego Convention Center, SDCC fills the massive exhibit hall with artists, vendors, and studios while offering hundreds of official events—including panels, cosplay contests, workshops, and portfolio reviews.

San Diego Comic-Con eclipsed 100,000 attendees for the first time in 2005

Step back into July 2005 at San Diego Comic‑Con—when over 100,000 fans roamed crowded halls filled with cosplay, classic sci‑fi exhibits, and early Marvel and Star Wars booths—and witness the electric energy of one of the first major attendance years for the conference.

Comic-Con is a nonprofit organization

San Diego Comic‑Con International launched in 1970 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit aimed at promoting public appreciation for comics and related arts. All proceeds fund programming such as Comic‑Con, WonderCon, and the Comic‑Con Museum.

San Diego Comic-Con will expand internationally in 2025

September 2025 will mark the inaugural global edition of San Diego Comic‑Con—marking the convention’s first expansion outside the US. The event will offer 300 hours of programming and is expected to draw around 60,000 fans.

In recent years, Hollywood studios have reevaluated their Comic‑Con presence

Comic-Con’s impact on the movie industry may be diminishing. In 2025, major studios—including Marvel, DC, Lucasfilm, Sony, Paramount, Legendary, and Lionsgate—scaled back Comic‑Con participation. They cited high costs, timing that didn’t align with release schedules, and limited marketing impact in a crowded promotional landscape.

America’s largest Comic-Con by attendance takes place in New York City

New York Comic Con—held annually at New York City's Javits Center since 2006—draws around 200,000 attendees, features more than 570 panels and events, and hosts more than 1,250 exhibitors, making it North America’s biggest pop-culture convention by attendance.

Since 1974, the Comic-Con Masquerade has been an iconic part of the gathering

At Comic‑Con, the Masquerade is the premier cosplay competition where participants submit handmade or significantly modified costumes for stage presentation. Contestants undergo pre-judging, perform live on stage, and compete for prestigious trophies.

CES has brought more than $6B in economic impact to Las Vegas since 1978

Since moving to Las Vegas in 1978, CES has attracted nearly 5 million attendees and generated more than $6B in local economic impact—boosting hotels, restaurants, transportation, and the city’s global profile.

College football weekends deliver major economic boosts to local communities

Home games draw tens of thousands of fans who spend on hotels, restaurants, and entertainment—injecting millions into local economies and making football Saturdays vital for many college towns’ businesses and seasonal revenue.

The film industry is responsible for more than 200K jobs in California

Hollywood films generate roughly $49B for the US economy each year. In California, the film industry provides more than 200,000 jobs. Industry employees were paid more than $42B in wages in 2022.

Oktoberfest generates over $1B every year

As one of the largest festivals in the world, Oktoberfest is an economic mainstay for Munich. Analysts estimate the annual beer fest contributes at least $1.4B in revenue to the city alone, accounting for roughly 2% of the city's gross domestic product.

Broadway's superfans unite at BroadwayCon

Like ComicCon for theater lovers, BroadwayCon convenes annually in New York and offers panels, meet-and-greets, and, of course, singalongs. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

Burning Man hosts roughly 70k attendees each year

Since 1986, the Burning Man organization has shared a census tracking growth, fluctuations, demographics, and burners' attitudes each year. Part of the organization's motivation is to monitor and reduce carbon emissions at the event.

Government shutdowns can cost the US economy billions

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the 2018-19 shutdown reduced economic output by about $11B, including a permanent loss of roughly $3B

The Eras Tour generated $2B in ticket sales, but $5B in consumer spending

Taylor Swift has achieved such high-profile status, her music and tours influence a broad swath of industries, communities, and economies. “Swiftonomics” is the term used to describe how Taylor’s tours, merchandise sales, and brand boost everything from local business receipts to tourism in a community.

Discover the economic value of coral reefs, which benefit one billion people worldwide

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration estimates that US commercial and recreational fisheries valued at $200M depend on coral reefs, which provide up to $1.8B in flood protection by absorbing 97% of wave energy. Combined with the benefits from tourism, US coral reefs provide $3.4B in value annually.

From 2014-25, US private sector data center investments have increased more than 25-fold

The annualized rate of US data center construction has ballooned from $1.6B to $41.1B, creating a market for data centers whose infrastructure costs and land, power, and transmission capacity demands rival those of offices and industrial facilities.

One in seven US tax dollars is collected by local governments

Local governments collect about $886B each year to support education, infrastructure, and public health. Roughly three-quarters of this funding comes from property taxes, with the rest sourced from sales, excise, and income taxes.

Roller coasters can cost millions of dollars to make, but they often offer a substantial payoff

Over 6,000 roller coasters are in operation around the world as of 2025, with ongoing demand to build more each year. Despite being costly (some theme parks pay upwards of $50M for these rides), their financiers are able to justify the investment when considering the long-term value of a ride that sticks around for decades with daily streams of visitors.

Dot-com companies paid $44M for Super Bowl ads in 2000

During the 2000 Super Bowl game, 17 dot-com companies paid $44M total for ads. Just the next year, only three dot-com companies ran ads in the game. The significant drop reflects just how hard the crash hit dot-com companies and how unsustainable the businesses were.

The global creator economy is worth roughly $250B

That number is derived from multiple sources (such as brand deals and affiliate links), and the projections for how much the creator economy will be worth in the future are even more complicated.

Coachella produces around 107 tons of waste per day

Coachella requires a massive infrastructure that powers its soundboards, lighting rigs, dressing rooms, bathrooms, restaurants, and more, creating a significant carbon footprint.

DC has the highest share of low-income renters on housing assistance in the country

Seventy-two per every 1,000 residents in the nation's capital were low-income residents on housing assistance as of the year 2024.

San Francisco has the highest-paying average monthly salary in the US at $7,092

Other relatively high monthly average salaries in major cities worldwide include those in Switzerland, specifically Geneva at $7,984 and Zurich at $7,788. This chart shows other major cities across the world with high average monthly salaries.

Over 400 tech companies call Santa Barbara home

The city boasts a strong talent pipeline from UCSB, established tech companies like Sonos and Procore and dozens of startups. Search for any company in Santa Barbara with this regularly-updated directory.

Calculate how much of your tax dollars go to each federal program based on your income, filing status, and number of children

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.

US consumers collectively owe more than $1T to credit card companies—almost as much as they owe in auto loans.

Fireworks-related ER visits are on the rise—in 2024, they increased by 52% as compared to the prior year.

Up to a million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million cookie boxes every spring, generating $800 million, largely because refusing a child is frowned upon

SpaceX's S-1 or 'prospectus' revealed many previously unknown details about the company, including its unprofitability despite doing $18.7B in revenue in 2025, exactly how many voting shares Elon Musk will have in the company (roughly 85%), and more.

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

Explore an interactive map built from more than 100,000 survey responses on where people find joy in their lives

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

70 years ago today, city officials in Santa Cruz, California, banned rock 'n' roll to protect its youth from corruption after witnessing a 'provocative' concert the night before.

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

The Nasdaq's 'Magnificent 7' companies are responsible for roughly 40% of the Nasdaq 100 index's gains, while the remaining 93 companies account for the other 60%.

Massive 3D printers have been used to build homes by stacking layers of 'concrete toothpaste,' a fire-resistant material that effectively insulates against outside noise.

The 1987 Nintendo video game 'Stadium Events' isn't known for being particularly fun, but its scarcity has made it a highly sought-after item that has sold for up to $35K at auction.

Massive blooms of microscopic plankton called dinoflagellates produce the neon blue light seen in glowing tides.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that was home to an estimated population of 200,000 to 400,000.

The use of fungi to detoxify land and water—a process known as mycoremediation—has been used to clean up natural resources affected by the 2025 California wildfires.

See how Budweiser's famous Clydesdales spend their days at Warm Springs Ranch, where roughly 70 to 80 of the beer brand's giant horses can be found at any given time.

Researchers believe the brain consolidates memories, processes emotions, and plans for the future during dream states

While El Niño moves warm Pacific Ocean waters east along the equator, La Niña moves them west, shifting where rainfall will become more common for months.

In 1945, Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and legendary animator Walt Disney began collaborating on a short film that was not completed until 2003, years after both men had died.

The US Constitution is widely regarded as the longest-standing written national constitution still in force—see how it has influenced rights worldwide.