Four days, roughly 70,000 people and one very large exhibition centre in Nasrec. Comic Con Africa with Capitec returns for its seventh edition from Thursday 24 to Sunday 27 September 2026, and the difference between a great day and a miserable one comes down almost entirely to decisions you make before you leave home.
This is the guide we wish someone had handed us the first time. Costs, prop rules, parking, which day to pick, and the small logistical things that can ruin an otherwise perfect weekend.
The basics, in one place
- When: Thursday 24 to Sunday 27 September 2026, 09:00 to 18:00 daily
- Where: Johannesburg Expo Centre, Nasrec Road corner Rand Show Road, Nasrec
- Tickets: Howler only. Day passes opened at R250 in phase one and have been listed at R270 as phases moved. Four-day passes and Saturday are sold out
- Parking: budget R50 per vehicle, payable to B-Free on arrival, separate from your ticket
- Kids: five and under enter free, and anyone under 16 must be with an adult of 21 or older
- Groups: 15% off for bookings of ten or more
- Refunds: none. Tickets are non-refundable, and a guest cancelling does not change that
You can change the day on your ticket by mailing Howler support, which is worth knowing if your plans shift. What you cannot do is assume tickets will be waiting at the gate.
Choosing your day, and this year the numbers decide it
Four-day passes are gone. Comic Con confirmed them sold out in late August, so if you wanted the full run of the show, that decision has been made for you and single days are all that is left.
On the last day-by-day update the organisers published, Saturday is sold out, Thursday at 60%, Friday at 51% and Sunday at 48%. All four days sell the identical show floor, so what you are really choosing is how many people you share it with, and which guests are in the building.
Thursday 24 September is Heritage Day, and it is when the die-hards arrive for first pick at Artist Alley and the exclusive merch before stock thins. Busy, but more collectors than casuals. Christopher Judge and Richard T Jones are not there yet.
Friday 25 September is the day the schedule quietly favours. Every single announced guest is in the building, because Judge and Jones arrive on the Friday while the Rick and Morty and One Piece casts are still there until Saturday. Only one other day can say that, and it is nearly sold out. Friday also carries roughly half Saturday’s ticket load, so it is the one day where you can see everyone without spending it in a queue.
Saturday 26 September also has the full roster, and it is the biggest day by a distance, and it may well be gone by the time you read this. Best atmosphere, worst queues, most spectacular cosplay. Buy now or pick another day.
Sunday 27 September is the quietest and the bargain day, when exhibitors would rather discount stock than pack it back into a van. Bear in mind the Rick and Morty and One Piece casts have gone home by then, leaving Judge, Jones and Alison Sealy-Smith. Go late in the afternoon with cash and negotiate.
Those percentages were current in late August and will have moved. Check Howler before you plan around them.
Who is actually on the bill, and when
The headline booking is Christopher Judge, Teal’c from Stargate SG-1 and the voice of Kratos in God of War, a performance that won him two best-performance awards for Ragnarök. He also voiced Magneto in X-Men: Evolution, which fewer people remember than should.
Alison Sealy-Smith is the other name doing real work here, the voice of Storm across X-Men: The Animated Series and X-Men ’97, and she is the only guest at the con for all four days.
Rick and Morty sends its three leads, Ian Cardoni as Rick, Harry Belden as Morty and Spencer Grammer as Summer. Richard T Jones, Sergeant Wade Grey from The Rookie, covers the series crowd. Netflix’s live-action One Piece sends five, and four of them are South African, which is worth saying out loud.
Guests are not there for all four days, and this is where people get caught out. Here is the full schedule.
| Guest | Known for | Days |
|---|---|---|
| Alison Sealy-Smith | Storm, X-Men ’97 | Thu 24 to Sun 27 |
| Christopher Judge | Kratos, God of War | Fri 25 to Sun 27 |
| Richard T Jones | Wade Grey, The Rookie | Fri 25 to Sun 27 |
| Ian Cardoni | Rick, Rick and Morty | Thu 24 to Sat 26 |
| Harry Belden | Morty, Rick and Morty | Thu 24 to Sat 26 |
| Spencer Grammer | Summer, Rick and Morty | Thu 24 to Sat 26 |
| Steven John Ward | Mihawk, One Piece | Thu 24 to Sat 26 |
| Alexander Maniatis | Captain Kuro, One Piece | Thu 24 to Sat 26 |
| Jazzara Jasslyn | Miss Valentine, One Piece | Thu 24 to Sat 26 |
| Nahum Hughes | Bartolomeo, One Piece | Thu 24 to Sat 26 |
| Martial T Batchamen | Brook, One Piece | Thu 24 to Sat 26 |
Read that table for a second and the pattern jumps out. Friday and Saturday are the only two days with every announced guest on site. Thursday is missing Judge and Jones, Sunday is missing the Rick and Morty and One Piece casts. Since Saturday is nearly sold out, Friday is the practical answer for anyone who wants the full bill.
Artist Alley has its own headliners, and if comics are why you are coming they matter more than the screen names. Spotlight artists include Mike Rooth, Mostafa Moussa and South Africa’s own Sean Izaakse, with writer Sam Humphries in attendance and street artists Moe Lycaen and Alaster on the floor.
Three ways to actually meet them
Main Stage Q&As are free. Every guest does live interviews and audience Q&A on each day they are at the con, included in your ticket, and fans get the mic to ask questions themselves. Get there early if you want a seat, and earlier if you want to be the one holding the microphone.
Photo ops are a paid add-on booked through Howler. A professional photographer shoots with studio lighting, you get a printed copy on site and a digital one.
Autograph sessions are also paid and run slightly longer than photo ops, so you get a couple of minutes of actual conversation. Bring your own memorabilia or buy a professional photo there to have signed.
Both sell out. Book before the show rather than hoping, and check the official guest page for each celebrity’s session times.
New for 2026
Otaku Town is the big one, expanding anime and Japanese pop culture into its own destination packed with Japanese retailers, first-to-country merchandise and Japanese food, plus activations marking 30 years of Pokémon.
The outdoor precinct has quietly become a reason to go on its own. There is a World War Two LARP re-enactment zone, axe throwing, a Toyota precision driving track, electric scooter tracks from both Xiaomi and Incredible Connection, lawn games, K-Pop performances on outdoor stages, and three food truck villages. If you have ever hit the two o’clock wall inside a packed hall, that is where you go to recover.
The Cosplay Championships raise the stakes this year, with the winner getting an expenses-paid trip to compete in the UK in 2027, alongside the daily casual competitions anyone can enter.
Everything else returns and has grown. Artist Alley now runs to over 200 local and international artists and crafters with its own stage for talks and live sketch battles. Esports includes Telkom VS Gaming tournament finals with serious prize pools, plus free-to-enter daily competitions from Red Bull and Toyota. Board games and tabletop RPGs get proper teaching tables from Solarpop and UnplugYourself where no prior experience is needed. Brand activations come from Capitec, Disney with daily Main Stage quizzes, Burger King, Kellogg’s, Sea Harvest, Fanta and others.
What a day at Nasrec actually costs
The ticket is the small part. Here is a realistic build-up for one adult.
- Day pass: R250 to R270
- Parking: R50 per vehicle, so split it if you carpool
- Food and drink: R150 to R300, at convention pricing
- Autograph or photo op: reported at R600 for Alison Sealy-Smith and R700 for Harry Belden, with a R200 add-on if you want a personalised five-word quote on the autograph
- Artist Alley: whatever you tell yourself, then double it
One upgrade worth knowing about if you collect seriously: the Capitec Super Fan Pass gets you onto the show floor half an hour before general admission. On a day like Saturday, where the good stock on limited items moves in the first hour, that half hour is the whole ballgame.
Which means a modest day is roughly R450 to R600 all in, and a day where you meet someone is closer to R1,200. Panels, talks, screenings and KidsCon are all included in your ticket, so the free programme is genuinely substantial if you are being disciplined. Autographs and photo ops are separate add-ons that go on sale roughly a month before the show and the popular ones do sell out, so book them in advance rather than hoping.
Bring a card and some cash. Vendors mostly take both, some food vendors are card only, and there are ATMs on site if you get caught short.
Getting there without losing an hour
Comic Con’s own advice is to use e-hailing, and on the busy days that is the right call. The Expo Centre has capacity for roughly 20,000 vehicles, so you will find a bay, but the approach roads into the Nasrec precinct back up badly from mid-morning on Saturday and again at closing when everyone leaves at once.
If you are driving, come in before 10:00 or after 14:00 and you will skip the worst of it. If you are e-hailing, book your ride home before you reach the exit, because surge pricing at 18:00 outside a venue emptying 20,000 people is exactly what you think it is.
On public transport, Rea Vaya’s T1 trunk route runs between Thokoza Park and Ellis Park East and stops at Soccer City, which puts you in the precinct, and Nasrec station sits on the Metrorail network. The Gautrain does not reach Nasrec, so the practical Gautrain route is to Park Station and then e-hail the last stretch.
What you can and cannot bring
Bag checks happen, walk-through and handheld scanners may be used, and security has final say on everything.
- Water: one 250ml non-glass bottle. No alcohol and no glass bottles at all
- Luggage: no suitcases, no wheeled carts, no trolleys during show hours, no exceptions
- Smart glasses: banned, and this is new. Smart AI glasses and any other wearable with a built-in camera, microphone or recording capability are not permitted, full stop. If you own a pair, leave them at home rather than discovering the rule at the door
- Drones: banned
- Pets: service animals only
- Cameras: welcome, but photos are only permitted during the first few minutes of a Q&A and are prohibited entirely during paid photo and autograph sessions
Bring a power bank, because you will be on your phone all day and there is nowhere convenient to charge. Wear shoes you can stand in for eight hours. September in Joburg is warm and the halls hold heat, so plan for that rather than discovering it at noon.
Cosplay props, translated out of legalese
Every prop goes through the Weapons Check Station at the front entrance, gets assessed and, if approved, gets tagged. Only tagged props are allowed on the floor, and misusing one on the day, swinging it around in a crowd for instance, gets it removed on the spot.
Generally allowed, at security’s discretion: props made of cardboard, foam or light wood; PVC, 3D printed and plexiglass props provided edges and points are unsharpened; plastic and metal shields; lightsabers; toy guns that clearly do not look real, cannot function or fire anything, and have a brightly coloured cap on the barrel; and prop bows, provided every arrow has a soft foam or cardboard tip.
Not allowed, and this list is longer than most people expect: functional firearms of any kind including airsoft, BB, cap, pellet, paintball and Nerf guns; realistic replica firearms that could be mistaken for the real thing; functional projectile weapons including crossbows, longbows, slingshots and water guns; sharpened metal-bladed anything including swords, daggers, kunai and shuriken; explosives and smoke-producing items; mace and pepper spray; blunt weapons including brass knuckles, clubs and nunchaku; hard props made of metal, fibreglass, heavy wood or glass; whips; vuvuzelas and grenade horns; and, in a line that has quietly become a fandom in-joke, aerosol mustard.
If your build sits in a grey area, mail the cosplay team before the show rather than arguing about it at the door, because the decision made at the weapons desk is final. There is a cosplay dressing room in the Cosplay Central Zone in Hall 6, run first come first served, which is what you want if your build does not fit in a car seat fully assembled.
Two more things. Costumes must clear a family-friendly bar, so nothing overtly sexual, nothing promoting hate symbols, and as the organisers put it, naked is not a costume. And while face coverings are fine inside the venue, security can ask you to remove a mask or headwear for identification at entry and exit, with exceptions for religious headwear.
Cosplay is not consent, and the rule has teeth
Ask before you photograph anyone. If they say no, that is the end of it. Do not photograph a cosplayer who is eating, on the phone, heading to the bathroom, prepping for judging or dealing with a wardrobe malfunction. Do not touch a costume, a wig, a prop or a person, and do not put an arm around anyone without asking first. Cosplayers can get “no photo” badges when they want to be left alone, and those are not decorative.
Comic Con runs a zero tolerance harassment policy and enforces it with removal from the show without a refund. If something happens to you or you witness it, report it to Cosplay Central, any staff member in branded clothing, or the Organiser’s Office.
Bringing kids
Under fives are free, and you claim that ticket through Howler rather than at the door. Anyone under 16 must be accompanied by an adult of at least 21 for the entire day, and unaccompanied minors are turned away at the gate. There is no childcare and no drop-and-go, so plan accordingly.
KidsCon runs to over 1,200sqm with its own stage, free-to-play zones, craft and dress-up activities, animation workshops and characters like Mario and Luigi roaming for photos, and all of it is included in your ticket. Teenagers from 12 up get something better than usual this year, with a co-located animation festival running hands-on workshops on building an actual career in animation. The single best piece of parenting advice for a venue this size: get a free wristband at registration, write your number on it, and agree a meeting point with everyone in your party the moment you walk in. Also worth knowing, some panels carry 16+ and 18+ content and need an age-verified wristband from the badge exchange.
Accessibility
Wheelchair ramps serve Halls 5, 6 and 7. Comic Con will send through a special needs plan covering access points and parking if you mail them ahead of the show, and visitors with mobility needs are given a yellow lanyard at entry so staff and other attendees can recognise and make space. Ask early rather than on the day, because the team needs lead time to arrange anything specific.
A workable plan for one day
- Before the show: book photo ops and autographs online, check which days your guests are appearing, download the show guide when it drops
- 08:30: arrive. Doors are at 09:00 and the first hour is the emptiest the floor will be all day
- 09:00 to 11:00: Artist Alley while the artists are fresh and stock is complete, plus any exclusive merch you actually want
- 11:00 to 13:00: Main Stage panels, or your booked photo op slot
- 13:00: eat before the queues peak, not during
- 14:00 to 16:00: gaming halls, Otaku Town, esports and the tabletop tables, then step outside to the food truck villages and outdoor zone when the halls start to wear you down
- 16:00 to 17:00: second Artist Alley pass for commissions and anything you talked yourself out of earlier
- 17:00: book your ride home now, before the 18:00 exodus
The mistakes people make every single year
They buy tickets at the door and find the day sold out. They leave photo ops until they arrive and find the slots gone. They bring a hard prop that gets turned away at the weapons desk after two months of building it. They wear new shoes. They budget for the ticket and not for the day. They try to see everything and end up seeing very little of anything.
Pick three things you actually care about, book those, and let the rest of the show happen to you.
Programmes shift, guests cancel and phases change ticket prices. Confirm anything time-sensitive against comicconafrica.co.za and Howler before you commit money to it, and note that the official site currently mixes Cape Town and Johannesburg information in places.
We are giving away three double passes to the Friday, entry is free, and there are extra entries hidden across the site.
