SNAFU Con
Sierra Nevada Anime Fans Unite!
SNAFU Con is an anime convention in the Reno/Sparks area of Nevada. The 2023 con was November 17 - 19, 2023. The 2024 con has not been announced yet.
Read our full COVID-19 policy here.
Quicklinks:
Parental Programming Notice
Parents - Read This Before Your Kid Attends
This convention is all-ages.
We do have some programming that most children would love, such as video games, a free-play lego table, and martial arts demonstrations. Most children also love the cosplayers. We do not cater to younger audiences, however. We feel that anyone under the age of 12 would not fully enjoy the convention, although we have received positive feedback from parents with younger children. We generally format our programming with a 13+ audience in mind.
We strongly recommend that all persons under the age of 18 have a chaperone with them at the convention, and we require chaperones for children under 13. We can not be responsible for the actions of our attendees or your child.
We do allow content we would consider to be "PG-13" on the main stage, usually later in the evening. Main stage is not allowed any hard swearing at any point during the convention – the words you generally can't hear on the radio, you won't hear coming from main stage.
"The Rave" is all-ages. "Rave" is the colloquial term for the convention dance with glow sticks and light show, and while other anime conventions take great pains to avoid staff and attendees calling it a "Rave" they never can get away from it. We just embraced the name (that's what everyone calls it anyway) and went with it. Your child is welcome as long as you are comfortable with your child dancing wildly in a dark room to loud music and a lot of glow sticks and moving lights. As of this writing we do not have a white strobe light, but you may want to check with the staff before entering if you or your child is sensitive to flashing light. We have many rovers posted to strictly control access to the room, and rovers watching the dance floor. We also make reasonable efforts to keep inappropriate language out of the DJs' sets, but we do not prescreen their music.
This is a "dry con." We do not allow alcohol anywhere inside of the convention area. Since we are in a casino attendees may have had alcohol elsewhere and returned to the convention intoxicated. As long as they do not bother anyone, we generally allow it. We do not allow harassment of attendees by anyone, sober or drunk.
We are not a 24-hour convention, but some of our programming runs quite late, into the early morning. It is worth noting that late night we tend to have non-attendee drunks wander over from the bars and attempt to get into the convention. We do not let them in, and we generally need to call venue security to remove them, which we do. We do not recommend allowing your underage child to wander unattended around the venue at night. We are happy to escort any attendee to their car or hotel room – they just need to ask.
We do have adult programming, usually in the later part of the evening. All adult programming is listed in the schedule and convention booklet as "18+" and we check government issued IDs for individuals to attend. We take the security of these panels and events very seriously. You can be sure that your underage child is not getting into any programming listed as 18+ unless they happen to have a reasonably accurate counterfeit ID, at which point you probably have bigger problems than the adult programming at our convention.
We also have 16+ programming. This is listed in our schedule and guidebook, but it's a guideline, not a restriction. Individuals under the age of 16 can attend 16+ programming. It is between you and your child to determine whether the programming would be appropriate for them to attend. The content allowed in 16+ programming is usually copious quantities of swearing, sometimes video of graphic violence, and sometimes mild sexual or otherwise inappropriate discussion. Strong sexual content or sexual images or video ("hentai") is NOT allowed in 16+ rooms.
If you find that a panel is listed as too low of a rating, or they have violated any convention policies, please report it to the convention staff immediately.
You should also read our policies, especially the section on children.
Anime cons are really the only places most of us feel safe enough to truly be ourselves and we would never want to ruin that safe feeling for anyone. We strive to be a safe place for all geeks of all ages to come and play.
We do have some programming that most children would love, such as video games, a free-play lego table, and martial arts demonstrations. Most children also love the cosplayers. We do not cater to younger audiences, however. We feel that anyone under the age of 12 would not fully enjoy the convention, although we have received positive feedback from parents with younger children. We generally format our programming with a 13+ audience in mind.
We strongly recommend that all persons under the age of 18 have a chaperone with them at the convention, and we require chaperones for children under 13. We can not be responsible for the actions of our attendees or your child.
We do allow content we would consider to be "PG-13" on the main stage, usually later in the evening. Main stage is not allowed any hard swearing at any point during the convention – the words you generally can't hear on the radio, you won't hear coming from main stage.
"The Rave" is all-ages. "Rave" is the colloquial term for the convention dance with glow sticks and light show, and while other anime conventions take great pains to avoid staff and attendees calling it a "Rave" they never can get away from it. We just embraced the name (that's what everyone calls it anyway) and went with it. Your child is welcome as long as you are comfortable with your child dancing wildly in a dark room to loud music and a lot of glow sticks and moving lights. As of this writing we do not have a white strobe light, but you may want to check with the staff before entering if you or your child is sensitive to flashing light. We have many rovers posted to strictly control access to the room, and rovers watching the dance floor. We also make reasonable efforts to keep inappropriate language out of the DJs' sets, but we do not prescreen their music.
This is a "dry con." We do not allow alcohol anywhere inside of the convention area. Since we are in a casino attendees may have had alcohol elsewhere and returned to the convention intoxicated. As long as they do not bother anyone, we generally allow it. We do not allow harassment of attendees by anyone, sober or drunk.
We are not a 24-hour convention, but some of our programming runs quite late, into the early morning. It is worth noting that late night we tend to have non-attendee drunks wander over from the bars and attempt to get into the convention. We do not let them in, and we generally need to call venue security to remove them, which we do. We do not recommend allowing your underage child to wander unattended around the venue at night. We are happy to escort any attendee to their car or hotel room – they just need to ask.
We do have adult programming, usually in the later part of the evening. All adult programming is listed in the schedule and convention booklet as "18+" and we check government issued IDs for individuals to attend. We take the security of these panels and events very seriously. You can be sure that your underage child is not getting into any programming listed as 18+ unless they happen to have a reasonably accurate counterfeit ID, at which point you probably have bigger problems than the adult programming at our convention.
We also have 16+ programming. This is listed in our schedule and guidebook, but it's a guideline, not a restriction. Individuals under the age of 16 can attend 16+ programming. It is between you and your child to determine whether the programming would be appropriate for them to attend. The content allowed in 16+ programming is usually copious quantities of swearing, sometimes video of graphic violence, and sometimes mild sexual or otherwise inappropriate discussion. Strong sexual content or sexual images or video ("hentai") is NOT allowed in 16+ rooms.
If you find that a panel is listed as too low of a rating, or they have violated any convention policies, please report it to the convention staff immediately.
You should also read our policies, especially the section on children.
Anime cons are really the only places most of us feel safe enough to truly be ourselves and we would never want to ruin that safe feeling for anyone. We strive to be a safe place for all geeks of all ages to come and play.