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For the past two summers, Maya Hampton has been driving nearly 200 miles from Killeen to Houston to attend one of the largest Black-owned gaming, anime and pop culture conventions in the country, Dream Con.
She, like many across the state and the country, views the annual summer event like a family reunion of Black nerds, who lovingly call themselves Blerds, where old friends catch up and new friendships are born.
“A lot of people travel here, but I am a little shocked how many people turn out (to Texas) every year for this,” said Hampton, who was cosplaying at the convention as Froppy, an anime character from My Hero Academia.
Founded in 2018 by a group of You Tubers, Dream Con debuted in Waco before quickly outgrowing its space, moving cities and finally landing in Houston last year. This year’s record-breaking multi-day convention drew 45,000 attendees and put it on par with another pop-culture staple in the South — Comicpalooza, the largest event of its kind in the region. Last year, Dream Con brought more than $19 million to Houston, up from $15 million when it was held in Austin the year prior.
Despite the success Dream Con has experienced, Texas is at risk of losing it to other large cities, like Atlanta or Los Angeles — cities that might be willing to offer more financial and marketing support than Texas.
This year, the conference was held in July at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston. The conference drew high-profile panelists — including a fireside chat with actress, writer, director and producer Issa Rae — and vendors from across the country hoping to get in front of a lucrative audience.
In a statement, Houston First Corporation, the city’s tourism and convention entity that operates the George R. Brown Convention Center, said Dream Con attracts thousands of out-of-town visitors, generating millions of dollars for downtown hotels, restaurants and other hospitality businesses during the slow summer season. Houston First said it is actively talking to Dream Con to continue hosting its event in Houston.
“Dream Con is a great event that has grown exponentially here in Texas since its creation in 2018,” Houston First said in its statement. “The conference draws a significant out-of-town attendee base, which strongly benefits the local hospitality industry. We look forward to Dream Con continuing to grow here in Houston in the years to come.”
Vendors said Dream Con is one of the few events that features Black creators, and losing it will strip away a local showcase of creative diversity among the Black community.
Kendale King, Dream Con’s chief financial officer and director of partnerships, said he can’t guarantee the event will stay in Texas next year, but is hopeful things can be worked out between them and officials from the city or state now that they seem aware of each other.
“It’s crazy because it’s not like we are trying to stay a secret. We just haven’t been tapping the right levers until this year,” King said. “We are navigating the process right now and having conversations with different pieces of the state and city. Now that we’re as big as we are, I’m actively looking for funding, saying y’all can keep us in the city, keep us in the state.”
Creating safe spaces
Dream Con was founded and is run by RDC World, short for Real Dreamers Change the World, a Texas-based collective of online video creators founded by Mark Phillips and Affiong Harris, along with members Leland Manigo, Desmond Johnson, Benjamin Skinner, Dylan Patel and Johnathan Newton.
Their original goal was to create a YouTube channel to build a large enough audience to eventually create their own manga and anime. The channel, registered in 2012, took off in popularity, amassing over 1.85 billion views and 7.33 million subscribers, built on comedy sketches about anime, sports, gaming and pop culture.
Despite their success, when RDC World attempted to attend anime and comic conventions as guests to meet and interact with their fans, they were often ignored or turned away, with organizers saying they wouldn’t “fit in” with the convention’s vibe, most likely because of their race.
The issue of not “fitting in” plagues Black nerds and other minority groups because there are few visual representations of them in science fiction, anime and comics. Interpretations of a popular character as an alternative race or gender are often met with hostility at large conventions due to fandoms being protective of the original representation.
“When you go to these conventions, sometimes dressed up as your favorite character, people aren’t too shy to walk up to you and say, ‘That person’s not Black,’ or they aren’t this or that,” King said.
King said many Black fans feel alienated from traditional large pop-culture conferences because of this.
“Some people take their fandom very seriously, and while they believe they are protecting their reality and their truth, they’re simultaneously stomping on somebody else’s view on it,” he said.
The group of YouTubers instead decided it was time for a Black-owned gaming and anime convention where the only limit on attendees is their own imagination, which led to the name Dream Con.
“It’s for us, by us.”
When the members of RDC World decided to launch their own convention, having it in Texas just seemed obvious to them.
“Being from Texas, this state has always been home for us, so there was always a pull to make our biggest moment happen here,” said Jay Sutton, event director for Dream Con.
The convention debuted in Waco in 2018 with about 800 attendees. Each passing year saw attendance increase as it moved to Arlington, then Austin, before settling over the past two years in Houston, with attendance reaching a 70-fold increase from when it started.
“Seeing where we are now, it’s not just about the number; it’s about what the number represents. It means more underrepresented fans feel like there’s space built specifically for them to celebrate the things they love, out loud, without having to explain themselves,” said Skinner, a member of RDC World.
At its core, Dream Con is a space for those who love anime, video games, pop culture and sports, offering an opportunity to gather like-minded individuals in either community. The convention features an artist alley, cosplay contests, gaming tournaments, concerts, panels, sporting events and much more.
Cameron Browning, who traveled from North Carolina, said this was his third time attending Dream Con, but this year was special because he brought his girlfriend, Mel Brown.
“I have always loved anime, and I have always loved this kind of environment, but I just got my girlfriend into anime, and she fell in love with it,” he said with both of them dressed up as anime characters from Seven Deadly Sins. “I wanted her to get this experience as well.”
Browning said a convention like Dream Con is needed because once a year, Black nerds have a home to return to, catch up and encourage each other.
“Nobody is second-guessing. Nobody is saying I don’t know if I will be welcome. It’s for us, by us,” he said. “It’s one of a kind, and I love it.”
Jahlil Rojas, founder of Nerd Square, a Black-owned clothing brand, has driven to Dream Con from Atlanta three years in a row to sell his merchandise. He said he plans to do it again because the community that assembles at the event each year is special.
“I love that this allows people to express themselves, be themselves, giving them spaces to drift away from what is normal or promoted as normal. You see more personality here, and that is what I really appreciate about it,” he said.
The success of the convention is partly due to King’s funding efforts, which have turned a concept into a business opportunity for Black creatives by securing major sponsors like YouTube, Twitch, Red Bull, and others to be right alongside them.
However, local business integration has also been a key piece of the convention’s revenue model, partnering with organizations like Bun B’s Trill Burgers to offer a limited-time collab menu and hosting the Dream Con Film Fest in partnership with Black Cinema Club HTX.
“Our focus has always been to create opportunities for those who maybe feel they are a bit underlooked and undervalued. Now that we’re on a higher trajectory, we have been looking at ways to bring other groups,” King said.
King said he is now ready to serve as the mouthpiece for content creation to lawmakers and local officials this year, as he tries to secure additional funding from the state of Texas or prepare to find it elsewhere.
“We have just been so focused on executing the event that it wasn’t really much of a thought for us to be like, let’s engage our congressman, or let’s engage the mayor or anything like that,” he said.
Figuring out what’s next
Yasmine Duhe, of digital media company OhSoYas Media LLC, said this is her fourth year attending Dream Con, and she has already seen how it has changed perceptions of her hometown of Houston.
“We don’t have spaces like this too often, especially in Houston,” she said. “Houston is not known as a media city or as a city with these types of spaces. You normally see this type of thing in LA or somewhere.”
Duhe said Dream Con not only benefits self-made media organizations like hers but also local businesses across the city, as she has personally witnessed its impact over the past couple of years. She said Houston is known for music, but the city’s creative space is much larger, with film, art and other content often overlooked. Dream Con is one of the first to put a spotlight on the city’s burgeoning Black creative scene at such a large scale.
This year, Chris Hollins, Houston City Controller, presented Dream Con’s content creators with an award for establishing the region as a major convention destination.
The founders of the convention view Houston as a potential launch pad for whatever Dream Con becomes next, whether it be a touring model or an international expansion.
“We’re still figuring out what’s next. Houston has given us so much this year, and there’s a real chance we stay right here. We’re keeping the conversation open and will have dates for 2027 soon,” said Newton, Dream Con co-founder.
The City of Houston does have mechanisms it can apply to Dream Con, such as economic development grants, hotel occupancy tax rebates and more, but King said the group hasn’t looked into them, partly due to a previous lack of knowledge.
“We are just now deepening our relationship with Houston. In the past, I think we’ve been so used to kind of just leaving every other year that this is the first time we have been able to work towards really deepening partnerships and connections,” he said.
While the group of Texas-raised content creators isn’t ready to commit their convention to Texas long-term, their appreciation for the state’s residents can’t be expressed enough.
“We want Texans to know this started with us, and it’s still ours,” said Phillips, co-founder of RDC World and Dream Con. “Every year, we get bigger. It’s because Texas showed up for us first.”
Disclosure: Houston First has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in The Texas Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.