On the morning of April 18, a line wrapped around the Javits Center—twice. By 10:30 a.m., a frenzied energy hung in the air as patrons tensely waited in line, while others briskly walked around to find another way inside. Some queuers donned hockey jerseys reminiscent of the ever-popular hockey romance genre, while shirtless “shadow daddies” sported wings sprouting from their back. Yet others proudly wore elf ears and Etsy-style pins expressing their love of reading.

After a six-year hiatus, ReedPop’s BookCon 2026 had arrived.

Much of the morning rush was on its way to a conversation between Heated Rivalry author Rachel Reid and director Jacob Tierney, the first time the two have publicly appeared together. The Main Stage, on Javits Center’s top floor, was supposedly reservation-only, but fans (many of them sans reservations) flooded into the space to hear about Tierney’s hit series adaptation of Reid’s hockey romance.

The excitement and bottlenecks of BookCon’s opening event portended an overcrowded weekend, to the chagrin of many fans. Publishers and booksellers, on the other hand, largely reported a successful weekend.

On the third floor, large publishers including Sourcebooks, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, and Bloomsbury set up shop under towering displays featuring the weekend’s biggest books—almost entirely romance, fantasy, and YA crossover releases. On Saturday, a worker at the PRH booth said the weekend had been a success so far, noting that “foot traffic has been high, [and] books are selling,” particularly from the Berkley XO new adult imprint.

A worker from HarperCollins echoed that Saturday had been very successful sales-wise but also “chaotic,” particularly when it came to ARC drops. Galleys were possibly the most coveted commodities at BookCon—and, accordingly, inspired the most frustration among fans.

Reservations for ARC drops, or periods where publishers would provide a limited amount of hard-to-get galleys, were advertised as part of BookCon’s VIP ticket package, which cost several hundred dollars. Concerns about the over-sale of VIP tickets had been building for several weeks after some ticket holders were unable to secure the reservations they were promised. Even with a reservation for the ARC drops, fans could be seen waiting in lines wrapped around publisher booths for up to 45 minutes, all to still walk away empty-handed. One HarperCollins ARC drop saw its line devolve into a crowd and there are several rumors, across different publishers’ booths, of agitated confrontations reportedly turning physical.

Among the ARCs that went the quickest in giveaways were R.F. Kuang’s Taipei Story (Morrow), Immortal Rose by Alexandra Bracken (Avon), Tempest by Victoria Aveyard (Morrow), Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel (Knopf), Phoebe Berman’s Gonna Lose It by Brooke Averick (Crown), and more.

Asked about the general mood among attendees, the HarperCollins worker said that people were “very excited, and everyone is doing their best to remain calm.”

Romance seemed to be the hot genre among the BookCon audience, though the thriller and fantasy crowds also made a good showing. Amid the many shops selling non-book merchandise on the first floor, there were signs pointing towards stalls with Pedro Pascal’s face touting “Daddies Here” and t-shirts with quippy sayings ranging from cute (“hot girls read”) to surprisingly lustful (“fill me with smut”).

Booksellers from the Ripped Bodice, a specialty romance bookstore with storefronts in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, said attendees were shelling out money, particularly for special editions of romance and romantasy books. Heated Rivalry, which commanded a whole table in the center of the setup, continued to have strong sales.

A bookseller at Salty Girl Books, a mobile book boutique based in Maryland, noted that BookCon provided a great opportunity to get out in front of a different audience, and that the readers in Indie Alley—which showcased work by self-published authors and creators—were eager to buy. The shop sold out of sweatshirts and books by cozy romance author B.K. Borison in a matter of minutes.

As successful as the venture may have been for many publishers and booksellers, BookCon was, in many fans’ eyes, a disappointment. Throughout the event, guests grumbled about event reservations going unchecked, as at the Heated Rivalry panel; accessibility concerns; and perilous line mismanagement. One passerby summed it up while waiting in line to take a broken escalator downstairs: “It’s not BookCon, it’s LineCon.”

The consensus seems to be that the harried experience (which attendees said was significantly worse on day one), while granting exclusive opportunities to meet authors and build in-person community with fellow readers, left many guests feeling frustrated, particularly in comparison to its more established sibling Comic-Con, which is also produced by ReedPop.

“Comic-Con is way more organized,” a passerby chimed in on a conversation among a group of attendees. “I’d rather do that than this.”

Earlier this year, BookCon also came under fire for the parent company ReedPop’s connections to ICE. Despite discourse on Threads and rumblings of a boycott prior to the event, there was little in-person evidence of the outcry. Book influencers Literary Intersections (aka Jess Lee) and Drama King Books (aka Seth), both moderators for different panels at BookCon, could be found distributing “ICE Out” pins on the show floor.

Lee, who had already confirmed moderating for BookCon before the outcry broke out, said she was “very concerned” by the ICE connection, but following a conversation with the BookCon team felt more confident in her decision to remain on the schedule.

“I think as much as we are very frustrated, at least the people that I talked to are as well,” Lee said of her conversation. “And so I think that helps to frame for me the importance of still coming, while also making sure that I was being thoughtful about my participation in my presence.”

“It's really important for me to be here, and also it's important for me to make sure that I am shouting to the rooftops that what ICE is doing is really horrific,” Lee added.

Seth, who goes by his first name, noted that, for some attendees, ReedPop’s ICE connections are only a symptom of a larger problem. “I do know people who [believe] if you cancel a BookCon for that, then [cancel] every other entity owned by something that has some connection to ICE,” Seth said. “Which in and of itself, is a problem, because we need to center the big fight against [larger] corporations.”

Overall, the specter of ICE did not hamper the excitement of the weekend. Sean, a several-time attendee to both cons, noted how Gen Z–centered the crowd was. He theorized that younger generations have claimed fan cons as an important third space. When asked if he thought fans had become more intense devotees of their favorite authors, Sean said that the energy more so reflected the growing “availability” of book fandoms thanks to social media.

“It’s easier for people to be fans of things now,” Sean said. “This is way bigger than the last BookCon.”