FAQ

Having fun and meeting all your favorite artists, designers, manufacturers, and vendors! Designer Con was founded in 2006 under the name Vinyl Toy Network. The show was created to bring together artists, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers in the vinyl toy/collectible figures market. The first show was in an 1,100 sq. ft. meeting room at the Pasadena Convention Center and has now grown into over 300,000 sq. ft. with over 700 vendors, art & custom shows, live demonstrations, and much more. DesignerCon now incorporates everything in the world of design including apparel, plush, printing, sculpture, designer toys, and art ranging from fine to urban. The show was founded and still run by companies who are also vendors which is why we strive to provide a fun, safe, comfortable environment for fans, artists, and vendors to meet! We look forward even bigger and better shows every year through the continued support of our amazing vendors and attendees. Without you, this show would not be possible, so from all of us at DesignerCon, thank you!

DesignerCon 2023 is a three day event on December 15th, 16th & 17th, 2023. Show hours on Saturday are 10am to 7pm and Sunday 10am to 5pm. VIP ticket holders will be able to enter the show at 9am instead of 10am on Saturday and Friday the 15th is strictly for VIP ticket holders. Hours for the Friday VIP-only night are 5pm – 9pm.

Early Bird ticket prices are as $25 for a 1-Day Pass, $40 for a Weekend (or 2-Day) pass and $95 for a VIP Pass which allows you to come on VIP Night, both weekend days, allows you 1-hour early entry on both weekend days of the show and gives you access to special VIP only sections of the show. As always, children that are 12 and under get into the show for FREE! You can buy your tickets online.

Yes! Please check the Exclusives Page for a current list and remember that some vendors wait until the day of the show to release their exclusives.

If you feel your company fits into the show, then yes! Just head over to our Vendor Info page to sign up! If you’re not sure if your company fits in with Designer Con, check out pictures from previous shows at our Flikr to get a feel for the show and if you are still unsure, feel free to email [email protected] and ask. We are always looking for new companies to help diversify the show!

First we want to warn everyone that if you received an email from a “DesignerCon partner” or someone claiming to be working with DesignerCon for a special hotel rate, IT IS FAKE! The only place where DesignerCon offers a special rate for hotels is on our website. That being said, you can find the hotels available with special rates for DesignerCon on the Show Information page of the website. We also recommend that if you do not use our hotels that you ONLY book hotels directly with the hotel or with reputable companies such as Hotels.com and Expedia.

As the show has grown over the years, we realized that the art behind the vinyl toy movement and some of the elements that helped put together VTN are out of the “vinyl toy” scope. Frankly, the name was too restrictive and we wanted people to know that the show includes not only vinyl toy companies, but companies from all aspects of design and art including clothing, printing, plush, etc. You can check out pictures from past shows on our flickr.

We offer many sponsorship opportunities from small to large. You do not have to be a vendor to sponsor. If you are interested in being part of DesignerCon by sponsoring us please contact us at [email protected] . We are always open to hearing sponsorship ideas as well.