Dream Con Co-founder John Newton On What It Takes To Make The Biggest Black Anime Convention Possible

Founded in 2019 by the social media collective RDC World, Dream Con has quickly established itself as the country’s biggest event for Black anime fans, social media personalities and cosplayers.

Everything from the event list to the vendors in the artist hall has been curated to cater to Black fans. Even the after-parties have been planned with Black people in mind. It’s no surprise that more than 20,000 people attended 2023’s Dream Con. And while no one person can take 100% of the credit for a cultural event this big and successful, it’s safe to say that none of this would’ve been possible without the hard work of John Newton.

Newton is the latest member of RDC, and the only one out of the group who started as a business associate of Mark Phillips (co-founder of RDC and Dream Con) instead of a long-time friend. As Phillips and the rest of RDC focus on the many other sides of their collective, John is the main overseer of the development of each year’s con. Everything from booking guests to securing hotel discounts for con-goers runs through him.

Newton spoke with The Quintessential Gentleman about the road that led him and his team here, as well as what fans can expect from this year’s convention.

QG: Could you briefly describe your role in Dream Con?  

Newton: I'm the co-founder and creative director of Dream Con. I'm basically over all the creative aspects as far as the programming, activities, talent, parties, and stuff like that. I try my best to creatively bring new aspects each year to Dream Con based off of what the fans want and based off of what RDC is trying to push the event towards. 

QG: How would you describe the rest of RDC’s role in planning out the event? 

Newton: The most crucial role that they play is in making sure that Dream Con stays within the overall vision they’ve had from the very beginning. A lot of the time I'm kind of like the middle person between RDC and the rest of the Dream Con. They're the ones that will come up with ideas. Like, “Hey John, what do you think about doing basketball?” Or “What do you think about doing this all-star tournament?” They basically just feed me a lot of ideas of things that they think the fans would enjoy and themselves would enjoy. 

QG: There's a lot of conventions. Whether it be Comic Con, Anime NYC, or even other Black-focused conventions like Blerd Con. What specifically was missing from those other conventions that you guys want to bring to your own con? 

Newton: I think that Dream Con was built due to a lack of responsive representation in cons as far as talent and programming. I think that a lot of the events kind of recycle some of the same talent, but there were a lot of influencers who were very interested in these events that weren't getting recognition. That's kind of why we took the route of kind of starting our own con and handpicking people and giving them an additional platform. That was a crucial foundation for how Dream Con has become what it is today. 

I think at the end of the day, the vibe we want to give with Dream Con is essentially like a large family reunion every year. I've seen so many people who we've met people that I haven't seen for years. And I've seen people who literally created friend groups from Dream Con that are still going on today. I think that's an incredible thing. 

QG: Now, how has your previous experience helped you develop Dream Con? 

Newton: I've never had any event planning experience before Dream Con. I used to work in real estate as a leasing agent and I dealt with a lot of people. I like to talk to people and I was always good at kind of selling stuff and getting people engaged in something. I think personally I've always been a creative individual. I've been into a lot of forms of entertainment, sports, gaming, anime, all those different things. But I've never quite put that into a lifestyle before I was a part of RDC. I was in those things, but I never thought that I'd be able to make a career out of it. It just seemed too unrealistic to me at the time. When the opportunity for Dream Con did come into the picture, it was easy for me to be able to piece together a lot of the requests from RDC and see the vision of the [anime] community, because I'm also a part of the community. I'm a genuine fan of it. 

I think there's a difference between just getting a businessperson who doesn't know about the entertainment aspect and having someone who's actually in the community. I have a direct idea of what I feel like I would like as a fan and what others may like. There's just more connection. I think that was a crucial part in helping me develop Dream Con for sure. 

QG: You guys have gotten a lot of mainstream attention as well, from guys like T Pain, Kev On Stage, Lil Yachty, J. Cole and others. What do you think it is specifically about this convention that has attracted that caliber of celebrity as opposed to all the other conventions? 

Newton: RDC is heavily in tune with the culture. With our content and just by people knowing us, we've had a little bit more opportunity to reach out to some of these individuals who support us as fans as well as partners and associates. And so, them seeing the different components that we have in Dream Con and them also being into those things have made it easier to pitch to them in general. 

QG: Now, last year was the biggest Dream Con ever. However, it did come that size did come with some problems. Some attendees complained about overcrowding and long lines. Could you tell us what con growers can expect this year in terms of the developments you guys have made in those areas?

Newton: Last year was the largest jump that we’ve had ever. There's a lot of growing pains to be expected going from 6,000 attendees to 20,000. That’s an insane growth. 

One of the big things we entered this year with is making sure that we were better adept and prepared to address a lot of those situations. Some of the stuff that we can highlight right now is that there are going to be four entrances with more metal detectors to help people get into the con quicker. I think we didn’t have enough of those last year, and so that process of just getting people in was like taking a lot longer than we’d like. We're also adding more signage. We're getting rope and stanchions, more security, and more staffing to help with crowd management for all the lines and congested areas. We know lines are inevitable. That's just a part of it. We have a lot of high-demand events with limited space. When you have 20,000 people trying to get into a room that only can hold 2,000 people, then people are going to be mad regardless. 

I think adding a little more space in between some of the major events and placing them more strategically will give people more time to get around multiple high-demand events around the same timeframe so if you do miss one you still can go to the other one. We don't want people to miss out on something that they specifically came for the event for, but at the same time, it's first come first serve. 

QG: As we wrap up here, could you tell me how have you guys managed to keep the original spirit of Dream Con while also growing and evolving? 

Newton: When it was a smaller and more intimate convention it was a lot easier for talent to be involved with people. But as you start to grow and grow, it gets a lot harder to manage that, especially for the safety of the talent in general. So it's a matter of creating more intimate experiences on a larger scale. We'll try and keep it as genuine as possible. 

We're also relying heavily on the attendees too, to create and maintain that experience amongst each other. Like I mentioned earlier, this is basically like a giant family reunion. Where everybody's talking and engaged with each other. I think the attendees are actually the biggest part in keeping the original spirit. Because without the attendees, there would be no spirit for the Dream Con in general. 

All photos courtesy of Dream Con