How Fans Run the Largest U.S. Anime Convention as a Nonprofit

After an all-out four-day weekend in Los Angeles, Anime Expo closed its doors for another year on July 5. Finally, Marc Perez has a few moments to breathe. “The hours are very nice a couple of months out of the year,” the CEO of the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation (SPJA), says of his job. Then it’s another 11 months of pre-con crunch time.

Anime Expo is the SPJA’s most popular con as well as the largest Japanese anime convention in North America. With nearly 100,000 in attendance, it is almost as big as San Diego Comic-Con, the continent’s most popular convention. Once considered to be niche curiosities, fan conventions like Anime Expo are too big to be ignored...