Anime Expo 2026: booth and convention photography for Shepard

Anime Expo is the biggest anime convention in North America — a few hundred thousand people through the Los Angeles Convention Center over four days — and for 2026 I was on the floor shooting exhibitor booths for Shepard, the show's official exhibition services partner. This is a different job than the cosplay shots that fill everyone's feed: it's trade show and booth photography, documenting the build-outs so exhibitors and the show organizer walk away with clean, usable images of what they actually put on the floor.

An exhibitor spends real money on a build — the Jujutsu Kaisen 5th-anniversary cityscape, the Toho Animation archway, the Beyblade X tournament arena, the My Hero Academia tower — and it needs to be documented properly: the whole set reading cleanly, the branding sharp, the mixed convention-hall light handled, and enough of the crowd in frame to prove it drew one. It's the same discipline as corporate conference and trade show coverage, just with more neon — wide establishing frames for the scale, tighter frames for the detail a recap deck needs, all shot fast because the floor never stops moving.

And the scale is the story. Anime Expo fills every hall the Convention Center has, plus the outdoor spaces — exhibitor floor, artist alley, tabletop and gaming tents, the AX beer garden, food trucks wrapped around the building. Shooting an event this size means reading the map before doors open and moving with a plan, so the booths, the branded activations, and the sheer turnout all come back covered rather than half of it missed.

Whether it's a trade show or convention, a brand activation, or a festival, the job doesn't change: document what a team built, prove the scale, and deliver it fast. Producing a convention, expo, or activation in Los Angeles? Tell me about your event.