Ok, I’ve been to a lot of cons over the past 16 years and I’ve seen them go from small and medium sized cons to oversized juggernauts. I’ve worked as a volunteer, as a celebrity assistant and in artist alley at a friend’s table. I have even gone as press. And with all this I’ve heard a lot of the same complaints over and over again. So I am putting together a series of blog posts where I want to try to dispel some of the misconceptions and rumors around conventions. I hope this can help some people.

The first topic I want to address is the price of celebrity autographs and pictures. Why are they so high?

Ok before I get into this I want to make a couple things clear. Cons have changed dramatically in the past 16 years. They have gone from small to medium sized shows to giant over the top pop culture juggernauts. And in the early days of cons the majority of celebrities at those shows were actors that were no longer relevant and yes in some cases it was sad for said celebrity. But times have changed and celebrities are gladly doing cons. For one most celebrities I have met/worked with at Cons love meeting their fans and 2 it’s become big business. Also it’s become a way for celebrities to gain more exposure and network with other people they might not meet normally. But the bottom line none of the celebrities I am talking about “need” to be at the cons. They are choosing to be there.

So the first thing you need to understand about the pricing is, believe it or not, is not set by the celebrity. Some do, but the majority do not. And they do not control the photo prices at all. It always break my heart when I hear someone say “Why is he/she charging so much? They have a big ego”. Don’t get me wrong they have a say in it, but they don’t always have the final word. (There are some celebrities I’ve seen in the past who scout what others are charging and adjust their prices accordingly, but that happens less than you think)

But why is that? Well it’s because there are a lot of people with their hands in the pot. See Bruce Campbell, for example, isn’t reaching out to a local con and asking if he can appear, and neither is Wizard, for example, calling him directly. There is a booking agent in the middle.

The booking agents are the ones that book said celebrity for events like conventions. Not the same guys that book them in movies and what not. In fact there are entire companies like Heroes for Hire that only book celebrities for conventions. So the Con reaches out to this company and says we are doing a show on X weekend and would like to book one of your people. The next thing the agent tells them is how much the appearance fee is.  See that’s the first thing, the celebrity in question has a standard appearance fee they charge just to show up. This is a predetermined amount and a percentage of this goes to the agent. But simply put it’s based on what the celebrity thinks their time is worth for that weekend.

So then here is where the pricing for the autograph gets tricky. The convention in an effort to recoup some of the appearance fee takes a percentage of the sales. (I don’t know if all cons do this, but a lot of bigger ones do). And then sometime the agent booking the person takes a percentage as well. So what happens a lot of time is the agent and the cons talk about who is going to be there and what the other people charge and they create a price based on perceived value. What they think people will be willing to pay for said celebrity. I’ve literally seen the agent put the sign down with pricing on the celebrities table and then when the celebrity shows up the look at the sign to see what they are charging. And I’ve helped celebrities separate their money at the end of the day to give the cut to the agent and con on a nightly basis.

As for the Photos, well that’s another story entirely. I remember the first show I was at that had an “official” photographer. All the cons I had been to before that you walk about to said celebrity got an autograph and then if they were nice enough you’d snap a photo with them. This was the first time I saw the celebrity I was working with tell people that they couldn’t get a photo with them. But they would let them take a photo of them. When I asked this person why they told me it was in their contact for the convention. Now what he did was after he was done for the day at the official photographer then he would take pics with people, because it was too late for them to get an “official” photo.

Well the cons put an end to that as well. The mentality is if they can just take a photo with a celeb why would they pay their official photographer? The photo sales are split between the photographer, the con, and the celebrity and their agent. After cost the Cons get the biggest chunk.

The argument you hear defending this practice is that the lines move faster when people aren’t stopping to take pictures. Having seen both sides of this there is no real difference. The speed of the line is determined by the celebrity and how much time they choose to spend with each fan. Someone like James Marsters can spend 15 minutes with each fan where Shatner is a sign and go type of line. Of course his line moves quicker, but if you just wanted an autograph you could have bought it online.

So the main person for determining the photograph prices is the photographer. It’s based on again perceived value of the person. If Harry Potter is the biggest thing there that weekend and one of the stars happens to be there they’ll be the highest, but Chris Hemsworth shows up at a con when the Avengers is about to come out he’ll be the highest. If you really pay attention the prices they fluctuate. I recommend going to wizard’s website and look at the photo op process from weekend to weekend you will see how much they change.

But the main thing I want to say in closing the people really to blame for the prices, are the fans. If no one was willing to shell out 180 bucks for a photo with Norman Reedus  (who I know is always willing to take a photo with fans for free) then they couldn’t charge that much. As a collective we need to stop paying the prices if we want them to go down. It’s the only way it will ever change.