Anime Central (ACEN) 2026: Never a Dull Moment

Location: Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, Rosemont, IL

Dates: May 15th - 17th, 2026

Anime Central: What is it? Where is it? And when is it?

Anime Central is a huge convention based around, you guessed it, anime and Japanese culture. ACEN, as it is more commonly known, happens each year on one of the middle weekends of May, and is located in the beautiful city of Rosemont, IL, a suburb of Chicago. The convention is held in the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, which is conveniently located near O’Hare airport, with access to multiple bus routes and a train stop for the Metra Rail in close proximity. There are tons of hotels and restaurants nearby to accommodate the large convention crowds that attend ACEN. In fact, the convention center is connected to multiple hotels, and even holds half the convention in the connected Hyatt Regency hotel right next door. 

Parking Near the Convention Center

Parking can be a bit tricky, but there is plenty if you know where to look, and if you are really lucky, you may even find a free parking lot, as long as you do not mind a bit of a walk. Parking usually costs anywhere from $15-$45 per day, and in some of the parking lots, you can take your ticket to a local business (not the convention) and make a purchase to get the ticket validated. This can bring the price down a bit on the parking, which is helpful when going to any convention. 

What does Anime Central have to offer?

Though centered around anime and Japanese pop culture, Anime Central also includes a large amount of gaming and game related interests as well, such as Magic the Gathering, One Piece the Trading Card Game, Pokémon Trading Card Game, other board and card games with some tabletop gaming in there too, even voice actors from video games too, and this does not even touch on the video game and arcade game area that takes up half of one of the halls in the convention center! There is a large portion of the Hyatt hotel that holds live events, such as concerts and dance parties, as well as panels, game demos, and a vast board game library. 

Anime Central has so much to offer when compared to similar conventions, especially since it is considered one of the largest anime conventions in the country, as well as having activities and events happening almost every hour of all three days from the opening ceremony on Friday until the closing ceremony on Sunday. 

A special spot at Anime Central is the Show and Movie Viewing Rooms. These are meeting rooms in the Hyatt that are used to show anime throughout the whole convention, even during the middle of the night and early mornings, and for certain blocks of time. This means that if there is an anime you have never seen, or one that you would like to revisit, check in on these meeting rooms, or place a request, and you could find a time block for that show on their schedule! 

So, when attending Anime Central, be sure to think about where you might want to visit, what you want to see, check the app that they use called Guidebook, and make a schedule for yourself. 

The Anime Central Convention Hours and Experience Tips

While most conventions are all about a beginning and end of day timeframe, usually spanning from 9 or 10 am to between 5 and 7 pm, Anime Central starts at 10 am on Friday, and does not close its doors until 4 pm on Sunday. 

For clarification, there are specific areas that do close down in the evenings, such as the Guest Signing area, Vendor, and Artist Alley areas. Other areas that close later at night, like the Board Game Library, which closes at 1 am and reopens at 8 am each day, and the Live Events have dance parties till 4 am, and then close for cleaning and reopen for the next big Live Event the next day. 

But certain areas never shut down throughout the whole convention. These areas include the Video Gaming Area, Show and Movie Viewing Rooms, Meet-Up area, and the Panel Rooms. All of these areas remain open, continuously having a wide range of things to do for the insomniac anime gamer attendees! 

That being said, these tips and tricks will focus less on general convention points and more on specific things that will help with your experience at Anime Central.

Top 5 Experience-Enhancing Tips:

1. Get your badge early. While the convention does not officially kick off until Friday at 10 am with the opening ceremony, it is a best practice to try to come the night before on Thursday between 4 pm and 9 pm to grab your badge. This allows you to park the next day and just stroll right into the convention without having to wait in the long lines to get badges at that point. While you may think that a Friday morning would not be busy, this year, the line for Will Call and Registration went around the block in two directions, and it took about an hour or more to get the badges! (See the pictures below.)

2. Plan ahead. Anime Central uses an app called Guidebook, which has all events, panels, guests signing, and times listed for almost everything going on during the convention. In the app, attendees can pick and choose what they want to attend. If there is a timing conflict, the app will mention it, and you can choose between your events or add both to your schedule. The app also connects directly to your phone and allows for push notifications, as well as making a calendar event. Do not get overwhelmed by how much is going on, because usually events, like tournaments or guest signing or demos, happen multiple times throughout the weekend, so if one timeslot conflicts with something else, try looking for both at a later day and time!

3. Eat and Stay Hydrated. While this may seem like a no-brainer, the sheer size of the convention can leave you wishing you had a small bag of chips or a quick drink of water when walking between the Hyatt and the convention center. If you have a nice bottle at home that you love, bring it, because there are water stations with multiple water coolers allowing you to refill a bottle or grab a plastic cup and get a drink. Having a few snacks in a bag also goes a long way because finding the specific food areas can be tricky, and most of them close up during the later hours of the convention each night, so if you are looking for a midnight snack while playing a game of DDR with your friends, you may be out of luck if you do not bring along some sort of food for yourself. 

4. Take a spin around the convention before settling on anything. This is just a trick I picked up from attending a lot of conventions. I always take a walk around all of the vendors and artist alley tables, making notes on what I would like from certain booths, where the table is located, and what the name of the company/artist is, so that I can come back and purchase the item later. This stops me from overspending, from buying a bunch of stuff that I wish I had thought about before purchasing, and gives me a chance to see if something else is cheaper at another vendor. For example, this past weekend, most vendors were selling TMNT MTG booster packs for $7, but then I found one vendor that happened to be selling theirs at $5.50 per pack, saving me $1.50 for each pack that I would want to purchase. While this does not seem like a lot, it also happens more than you think, and can make for bigger discounts depending on the items. One vendor might be overselling their product by $10 or $20, and two rows over the same product are being sold for much less! Do yourself a favor: take the extra hour to just look, snap a picture of the booth, snap a picture of the item, speak with the vendor about how many they have in stock, and if there are plenty, then just circle back after checking other vendors. It may cut into a little of your time, and at times you may miss out on a product that gets sold that you really wanted, but it also allows you time to think about each item, keep away from gimmicks, and to check if the same item can be found for cheaper at another vendor.

5. Always get some sleep. Anime Central may always have something for attendees to do, but you cannot fully enjoy the convention if you miss out on sleep. There are plenty of ways to get some quick sleep without missing too much of the events going on throughout the convention. You can take naps that can help get you through the few days of the convention, be it in your car or at your hotel room, maybe drive home for a few hours, but please, ensure you get sleep. Lack of sleep can lead to a lot of issues, not least of which is memory loss, meaning you won't even remember the convention that you just attended! You can also become too tired to drive home, you can slip and fall over things, and you can feel sick. I know it is tempting to just try to stay up all three days and nights, but there are very few people who can do this successfully and still be able to function enough to drive home at the end of the convention. Do yourself a favor, and get some Zs, and come back refreshed to enjoy the convention to the fullest!

Bonus convention tip: 

Validate your Parking. While I mentioned this earlier in the article, a good thing to remember is that while you are enjoying the convention, if you brought a car, that car is racking up a parking fee (unless you were able to find a free parking lot). But you can get your parking validated at any of the local businesses near the convention, which means that all you need to do is go grab a meal each day at one of the very delicious restaurants close to the convention center, and they will validate your parking for you. When they do validate, that means that the cost of parking in that garage can drop from $20 to $0, depending on the garage you park in. You have to have a meal at some point, so this is just trading spending the $20 on parking for spending it on food. 

What to Expect? Similarities and Differences of Anime Central

Anime Central offers a wide variety of great activities, amazing panels, fantastic people, and crazy amounts of ways to spend your time and money. 

As with most conventions, there are many different panels, ranging from celebrity speakers who talk about their work to ranking the opening scenes of anime shows as Good, Bad, or Ugly. Some notable panels from this year’s convention would have to include: Whose Line is it Anime!, Chiikawa: How Small and Cute Took Over Japan, Anime Bangers, Good, Bad, and Ugly: Anime Openings and Anime Endings, and RPG/Video Game OST Medley. Most panels are run by volunteers or even the convention staff. Unlike most conventions, the panel choices have fewer celebrity panels and more fan-run panels, meaning you won't see many celebrities on stage holding panels, but you will get a fan’s perspective of the subject, also including plenty of crowd interaction and input! So, if you plan to attend a panel, be ready to learn and interact with the panelists and be included in the panel itself. 

Another similarity to other conventions would be the vendor hall and artist alley. But while other conventions offer more generic nerdy items, Anime Central tries to curate the list of vendors and artists to ones that focus more on anime and Japanese culture items. Limiting the vendors and artists allows for another difference between Anime Central and other conventions: a row of tables devoted to non-profits and other conventions. You read that right, Anime Central promotes other conventions and charities that their attendees may be interested in attending or giving their money to, rather than losing these among other vendor tables that you might walk past without noticing. With 20+ tables, the conventions and non-profit area takes up a full length of the convention hall, and should be noted for each attendee because of the range of missions and interests that each offers. 

Every convention holds meet-ups for cosplayers and groups, but while most of the conventions just offer small sections of the entrance hall for this purpose, Anime Central devotes a full half of the two convention halls. This means that cosplayers, photographers, and onlookers all have the ability to meet up in groups larger than can gather in the spaces of the entrance halls. Photo opportunities, fan love, and group interest all come to life during these meet-ups and allow everyone in attendance to truly appreciate each of the cosplayers’ devotion to their craft. At Anime Central, there is more than just an entrance area or a cosplay parade for these crafters to show off their labor and careful work; there is a whole section of this convention dedicated to allowing all the attendees the opportunity to see, photograph, and speak with the cosplayers, and for the cosplayers to show off, spread out, and be seen. It is a wondrous and wonderful area, and I suggest everyone attending go visit. 

And lastly, one of the key differences between Anime Central and other conventions is that while, like other conventions, Anime Central does have a specific theme (anime and Japanese culture), that is not where this convention stops and limits itself. Anime Central celebrates these two main themes, but it also has plenty of other themes to find, if you know where to look. At the beginning of this article, the list included the board and video game areas. These do not just have small areas or only a few choices for the attendees, but rather a quantity and quality of variety that would only be seen in a cyber cafe or arcade. Even the board game library offers choices, and helpful staff to assist with learning the games and teach any new players.

Keep all these similarities and differences in mind when attending this amazing convention, and remember, no matter how much you see one year, there is always something you missed, but you can probably find it next year! 

Wrap Up

There are many conventions out there, be it gaming, fandom, creative, or even cultural. Anime Central has it all in one place and continuously for almost 3 consecutive days! From the time of opening until the closing ceremony, each attendee has the opportunity to find some sort of interest satiated by one area or another. Panels, cosplayers, charities, live events, cultural exchange, gaming, and regular camaraderie can all be found in one fantastic weekend full of inclusivity of a wide range of interests. Anime Central offers a one-stop shop for any and all convention needs and will surprise you with things you never knew you wanted. 

Anime Central 2026 did not disappoint, and I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible in 2027!