This story originally appeared in The Centre County Gazette.
Jedi training, a starship bridge and some of the biggest names in sci-fi and anime are all headed to Centre County when the Happy Valley Comic and Collectibles Convention returns to the Nittany Valley Sports Centre on Feb. 28 and March 1.
Now in its fourth year, the convention is doubling in size, expanding from 50,000 square feet to 100,000 square feet as it takes over the entire sports complex.
“Every year we’ve increased with attendance, and this year we’re actually taking the whole Nittany Valley Sports Center,” organizer Thomas Range said. “So instead of 50,000 square feet for the past three years, this year it’s going to be 100,000 square feet. Really looking forward to that.”
The bigger footprint means more of everything: more vendors, more games, more room to move and more experiences packed into one weekend.
The convention will welcome celebrities including Tricia Helfer from Battlestar Galactica and Lucifer; Tracee Lee Cocco, known for her many roles across Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager; Allyson Leigh Rosenfeld from Pokémon and other anime series; Ray Hurd from Dragon Ball Z and other anime shows; and Olliver Wyman from Yu-Gi-Oh and other animated projects.
On the comics side, more than a dozen artists and creators are expected, including Fabian Nicieza, co-creator of Deadpool. In all, the convention will bring in over a dozen comic book dealers, comic book publishers, book authors, sports card and collectible card vendors, toys and more.
Range said the expansion is about more than just adding tables.
“We definitely have more room for Jedi training. They actually have to call it Padawan training because Jedi is copyrighted, but Padawan is not,” he said with a laugh. “We have a bigger gaming area so people can come and sit down and play games like Yu Gi Oh, Magic the Gathering, Pokemon or just board games if they want to bring some board games. There were times that the crowd had a hard time going down the aisles. So now we have a little bit more space in between the different vendors as well.”
The weekend will also feature three costume contests, Magic: The Gathering tournaments and Pokémon card play. Cosplay groups will be out in full force, including the Grumpy Ol’ Green Guy, Happy Valley Chewie, Garrison Carida of the 501st Legion, Jedi from the Malachor Temple and Penn State’s Alliance of Heroic Hearts.
A Starfleet cosplay group from Pittsburgh will bring a mock-up of the bridge of the USS Solstice for photo ops, and “Ruby the Impala,” a tribute to the car from the TV show “Supernatural”, will be on site for pictures and sit-in sessions.
“We also have a car that was the same style car was used in the movie Supernatural,” Range said. “It’s called Baby, but this one’s called Ruby because it wasn’t actually in Supernatural, but it’s a car made up to be like the car in Supernatural. And again, you can take pictures of it or for 10 bucks you can go inside, pretend you’re driving it or hold some of the weapons that they have.”
Penn State’s All-Sports Museum will have a display at the convention, and many of the interactive attractions, like the museum, the USS Solstice and the Padawan training, are by donation only.
“If you bring the kids and they just want to explore, it could cost them nothing other than the ticket to get in,” Range said.
A limited-edition Batman comic book, drawn by artists who will be at the show, will be available to attendees who choose the Early Entry Add-On. Early entry gets guests inside at 9:15 a.m., ahead of the 10 a.m. opening, plus the special comic.
“There’s only a thousand of them made,” Range said. “If you do the early entry option… you get this $40 comic. So basically, you either think of it this way, I’m getting this comic and I’m going to the convention for free. I’m going to the convention, but I’m getting the comic for free.”
Any leftover copies will be sold at the convention.
For Range, the event is as much about community as it is about collectibles.
“I think everyone longs to be with people that have similar thoughts or similar interests,” he said. “Centre County is no different. There are comic book people here, there are anime people here, there’s gamers in this area. So when a convention’s around that all of these different people can meet up that they would have never met before, it gives you an opportunity to go and do that and meet people that are very similar to you.”
Attendance has grown from around 2,000 people in the first year to more than 6,000 last year, and organizers are hoping to reach 7,000 to 8,000 attendees in 2026, with help from the Happy Valley Adventure Bureau.
It’s also truly a family operation.
“It’s kind of like a whole family affair,” Range said. “My wife’s the artist aspect of it, and she does all our logos. My daughter majored in film and psychology at Penn State University, and she basically takes over the stage part, you know, setting it up, getting it ready, making microphones work. My son as well. He works for NASA and he’s a scheduler for the astronauts on the International Space Station. So he’s pretty good with scheduling.”
“I know I could not do this at all by myself,” Range said. “So it’s nice to have that support group there. It’s really a family affair. And then it’s family and friends. It’s friends of the family that are helping out.”
“We are very family friendly,” Range said.
On Sunday, children 10 and under get in free with a paying adult. Children 5 and under are free both days. College students pay $8 per day and the convention is adding shuttle buses from East Halls and from a secondary lot near the airport to ease parking concerns.
Tickets are $20 at the door on Saturday and $15 on Sunday, with two-day passes for $30. Online tickets are discounted and anyone who buys online gets a limited-edition collector’s pin featuring this year’s logo. Online sales end Feb. 14 to allow time to make the pins.
For more information or to purchase tickets, visit www.happyvalleycomiccon.com.
