Fanatics Fest 2025 has Come and Gone. Did it Live up to the Hype?
Fanatics Fest 2025 is in the books. The three day event drew thousands for fans from across the country to New York City. The anticipation for Fanatics Fest has been building since Fanatics announced the event would be returning to Javits Center in late 2024. Since then Fanatics had provided a steady stream of updates involving athlete and celebrity appearances, autograph signings, meet and greets, and panels to build excitement until the weekend of the big event. Now that it has passed a question that remains for collectors and fans was whether the event lived up to the hype. In this article I’ll break down the positives from the event, provide some suggestions from a collectors perspective for improvement, and answer the question posed earlier on whether or not Fanatics Fest 2025 lived up to the hype.
Positives from Fanatics Fest
Overall, there were many positives from this year’s Fanatics Fest so I will highlight a few that stuck out to me. One area that was an improvement over the previous year’s event was how Fanatics elevated the dealers present. Unlike last year’s event, Fanatics Fest 2025 did a better job of integrating dealers into the show by having them dispersed throughout the event space. The goal was to drive more foot traffic to vendors and it appears most who attended were happy with that change. A second positive from the event was how Topps Exclusive products (Cactus Jack, F1, and Series 2) were distributed to buyers. Unlike last year where Series 2 was sold on a first come first serve basis, Topps exclusives were purchased in advance as part of a lottery where buyers chose their pickup times in advance. This eliminated the need to spend hours in line to get the products without a guarantee they would still be available when it was your turn.
Another positive was how the autograph and photo op zones were set up and organized. Last year, the autograph zone and photo opp zone were placed on the main floor far apart from each other. Often, the lines for popular athletes would be so long that they would overflow into exhibits or other areas on the main floor leading to congestion and overcrowding. This year the zones were placed on the ground floor next to each other relieving the overcrowding of the previous year. Other notable improvements were a larger F1 section complete with a replica car and more food options including Raising Canes.
Areas for Improvement
Although the Fanatics Fest experience had more positives than negatives, I found there were some small areas for improvement. One suggestion for improvement would be increasing the number of memorabilia dealers present at the event. While a lot of fans and collectors gravitate toward the card collecting aspect of the hobby, there are still many people who enjoy collecting autographed memorabilia. There were a few dealers present, however, they were harder to find as they were not placed on the main floor. Another area for improvement would be to increase the number of active star players from across pro leagues signing autographs at the event. While NFL players like CJ Stroud, Jayden Daniels, and Caleb Williams, participated in panels, none of those rising starts participated in autograph signings. I suspect if they did, those signings would be extremely popular. Again these are small things that did not hurt the overall experience.
Final Verdict
If you have read this far you can have probably correctly guessed that my final verdict is that much like Muhmmad Ali and the Hubble Telescope Fanatics Fest did in fact live up to the hype. The energy was high, the vibes were good, the events were entertaining, and there were plenty of fun activities for those who attended. If you get a chance to go to Fanatics Fest in the future I highly recommend it
