SpaceCon 2026!

by James Herrera

Mari and I touched down in San Antonio on Thursday, June 11th, ahead of the third annual SpaceCon. For me, flying into San Antonio is always a homecoming — I grew up just east of the city. For Mari, the Texas heat, hit her the second we stepped off the plane. "Welcome to Texas," I told her, because there's really no other way to say it.
That evening we met up with David and Craig from the podcast, and it was great to have part of the team back together in person. We caught the film Disclosure Day before calling it a night — a late one, since the next morning meant an early start.
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SpaceCon is one of the newer additions to the Texas convention scene, now in its third year, and it's quickly become a major stop for sci-fi and pop culture fans across the state. The show brings in a wide mix of guests spanning Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel, and beyond, alongside panels, autographs, photo ops, cosplay, and a packed vendor floor — all under one roof at the Freeman Coliseum Expo Halls.
We made our way over bright and early for day one, and the size of this thing was obvious before we even got inside. Giant banners lined the outside of the Coliseum with faces like Tom Hiddleston, Karl Urban, Zachary Quinto, John Cena and Hayden Christensen looking down on the line. This is not a small event for Texas. These are heavy hitters.
Once inside, the show floor had all the usual suspects — toys, merch, posters — but one thing stood out to me: the sheer number of local vendors selling original artwork and crafts. One booth near us had handmade leather keychains branded with both Star Trek and Star Wars logos. Watching local Texas artists make a living creating art for nerds, for us, was something special. 
By the time the convention got moving, it was clear this was going to be a packed house. The aisles stayed full of people the entire weekend.
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Zac from the Star Wars Stuff Podcast joined us shortly after, and having the full crew together in one place was a treat. Mari and I are both in California, but we don't even record together — the podcast has run on technology and time zones for years because we're all scattered across different states. So standing around together, in person, in San Antonio, was rare. Our friend Adam joined the group too, and for a while we weren't podcasters at all. We were just fans, laughing, joking, and nerding out about Star Wars with no microphone in sight.
Sitting at our booth, meeting people, and talking with fans walking the floor was a highlight of the weekend on its own. The cosplay was incredible. And every time someone walked up and said, "I know who you guys are, I've been listening for years," it put a smile on David's face and mine that never really went away.
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The panels themselves were great. Our friends from Countdown City Geeks moderated several of them and did a fantastic job — the crowd reactions and the energy from the celebrities on stage made it clear everyone in the room was having a good time.
The weather did its best to slow things down — hot, humid, and rainy for most of the weekend — but fans showed up anyway. The photo-op and autograph areas were packed from open to close, full of people waiting for their moment with a favorite actor.
I ended up talking with one attendee who's been hitting conventions across the country for the last 20 years. He had an entire booklet of photo-ops just from this one weekend, and he showed me a picture of his Captain America shield signed by pretty much every actor from the MCU. I asked him, genuinely curious and not poking fun at all, why he does this so often. His answer stuck with me: "I run my own business, and I'm locked in every day. This is my escape from all of that."
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And that's really what a convention like this is — an escape, and a gathering point for every kind of fandom under one roof. You could walk past a replica of the bridge of the Enterprise, then right next door find a Jedi Academy teaching kids how to swing a lightsaber, and a few booths down from that, a giant inflatable Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man standing guard over someone's proton pack.
Growing up a nerd in Texas, I never had anything like this. If this convention had existed when I was a kid, I would have been first in line. So seeing young kids running around dressed as Jedi, Marvel heroes, and even deep-cut stuff like X-Files and Independence Day characters meant a lot to me. It feels like in the last fifteen years, conventions have finally opened up for everyone. Growing up, San Diego Comic Con and New York Comic Con felt like things that happened to other people in other places — there was no realistic path for a kid in Texas to ever attend one, let alone meet a celebrity. But with shows like Space Con, and Rebel Scum Con on the horizon, getting that photo or autograph with someone you grew up watching is finally within reach for fans here at home.
Overall, I loved SpaceCon. I'm already looking forward to next year, and hopefully getting the whole crew back together again. If you're local to San Antonio and on the fence about going — go. It's fun, and it gives you something special: a place to be a kid again, even if just for a weekend.
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