I’m a casual anime fan so I’m generally not looking for conventions to go to, but I’ve been to a few with a friend who really wanted to go. They weren’t major national conventions, but fairly big regionally. Honestly they were like any other convention I’ve ever been to except with costumes. Maybe a little more social generally with people taking pictures and complementing the cosplay stuff, but outside of that you could have switched the anime out with just about anything else and I’d never have known the difference. It was always a good time. Don’t know that I’d go out of my way, but if someone wanted to go asked me to come along I’d go happily.

As someone living in city with big exhibition center I only notice some cosplayers in public transport.

Last time I was there for IDET, ISET, PYROS exhibitions.

Anime Central in Chicago was super fun. Lots of artists making prints badges shirts and body pillow covers. They had arcade machines set up in the back, and multiple fighting game tournaments. Some Wit Studio animators for Spy x Family were there to observe the cosplay meetup and later gave a panel about how the OP was animated.

My only regret is that I didn’t get a hotel closer to the convention center.