Downtown Phoenix is about to fill up with cosplay, con crashers and cactus-branded fandom as Saboten Con, Arizona's largest anime convention, runs Friday through Monday at the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown and the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown Hotel. The four-day event celebrates anime, manga and Japanese pop culture with fan panels, concerts and cosplay, and organizers expect the gathering to draw more than 50,000 people to the two hotels this year.
The convention traces back to May 2008, when it was founded by Square Egg Entertainment, the same organization behind Phoenix Fan Fusion, to fill a local venue gap after AniZona 4 was canceled, according to Phoenix New Times. Husband-and-wife team Greg and Stacy Fennell acquired the event in 2010 through their company Monkey Paw Entertainment, and it remains the flagship of a regional anime convention circuit that also includes Tucson's Con-Nichiwa, Flagstaff's Kikori Con and Albuquerque's Sabaku Con, per AZ Fandom. The name itself, Saboten, is the Japanese word for cactus, chosen at the con's 2008 debut as a nod to Arizona's Sonoran Desert landscape.
This year's guide from Phoenix New Times, written by Benjamin Leatherman, lays out the full schedule, guest list and ticket details for attendees heading downtown this weekend. The Sheraton, located at 340 N. Third St., hosts the vendor hall, artist alley, guest appearances, concerts and cosplay programming, while the Renaissance at 100 N. First St. is home to SaboSlam, the convention's gaming-focused sister event featuring esports tournaments, gaming areas, vendors and separate programming.
Hours, Badges and How to Get In
Saboten Con runs from 1 p.m. to 2 a.m. on Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 2 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday, and 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Monday, the final day. Pre-registered attendees can pick up badges Thursday evening from 7 to 10 p.m., with general registration open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday through Sunday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Monday at both the Sheraton and Renaissance hotels.
Daily badge prices for Saboten Con are $30 for Friday, $50 for Saturday, $50 for Sunday and $30 for Monday, while a full weekend badge costs $70. SaboSlam has its own pricing structure, with a day pass at $20 and a full-event badge at $40, and it can also be purchased as a standalone ticket without Saboten Con admission. Children 12 and younger get in free with a paid adult, and online advance badge prices run $5 to $10 cheaper than some onsite options, though discount codes are not currently available.
Voice Actors, Cosplay and Concerts on the Bill
The guest list includes more than three dozen anime and video game voice actors, artists, professional cosplayers and bands. Among them is Asami Imai, a voice actor and singer known for Steins;Gate and The Idolmaster, alongside Sora Tokui, a manga artist, voice actor and singer recognized for Jujutsu Kaisen and Love Live!
Other confirmed guests include Xanthe Huynh, with credits in Persona 5, Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Honkai: Star Rail; Keith Silverstein, who plays Zhongli in Genshin Impact and Hisoka in Hunter x Hunter; and Cassandra Lee Morris, who voices Morgana in Persona 5, Leafa in Sword Art Online and Yuumi in League of Legends. Erica Mendez, known for Kamisato Ayaka in Genshin Impact and Sailor Uranus in Sailor Moon, joins Alexis Tipton, a voice actor and ADR director associated with Chainsaw Man, My Hero Academia and Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, and Sean Chiplock, who has played characters in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Mortal Kombat 11 and Genshin Impact.
The convention's cosplay lineup features Utahime Cosplay, a professional cosplayer, tabletop RPG performer and content creator. Musical acts include Isekai Stage, a J-rock trio known for anime and video game music performances, and Babybeard, a costumed kawaii metal trio fronted by singer and professional wrestler Ladybeard. Saboten Con's cosplay masquerade, which showcases the weekend's best costumes, takes place Sunday from 7 to 10 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom at the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown Hotel, part of a slate that includes more than 100 cosplay panels and workshops across the weekend.
Vendor Hall and Programming Hours
The exhibit hall runs noon to 8 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the closing Monday. Altogether, Saboten Con 2026 packs in more than 800 hours of community-driven programming across its four days, ranging from fanfiction history lectures to specialized horror cosplay workshops, a scope the Phoenix New Times guide frames as central to the convention's grassroots identity.
A Regional Anchor in a Growing Industry
Saboten Con remains far smaller than Arizona's largest general pop-culture convention, Phoenix Fan Fusion, which drew a record crowd of more than 130,000 attendees to the nearby Phoenix Convention Center in June 2025. Even at its own more modest scale, the anime convention has grown steadily; it recorded an estimated 23,000 unique visitors and more than 50,000 turnstile entries during its 2021 gathering at the Sheraton, according to Wikipedia's history of the event.
Part of that staying power comes down to how Monkey Paw Entertainment runs the business. In a 2023 interview with Legion of Sand, CEO Greg Fennell said the company keeps badge pricing lower by operating its own internal print shop and purchasing its own pipe-and-drape staging equipment rather than renting from third-party vendors. That cost control has supported the convention's expansion, including the 2023 move to double its downtown Phoenix footprint by adding the Renaissance hotel for SaboSlam alongside the long-running Sheraton venue.
The convention's growth also tracks a larger industry wave. Global market research from Grand View Research estimated the worldwide anime industry at $37.7 billion in 2025, with projections reaching $41.7 billion in 2026, driven by streaming distribution and live fan conventions. That momentum lines up with a trend Hoodline previously reported: mid-sized fan conventions increasingly filling hotel and venue calendars once dominated by corporate trade shows, a pattern also visible at massive gatherings like Anime NYC, which drew roughly 170,000 attendees to the Javits Center last month.
