FWA Is Expanding! AmericasMart Is Joining Our Venues!

We’ve got some big news!

FWA is expanding even more!

FWA’s Vendor Hall is officially moving to AmericasMart!

Starting in 2026, you’ll find the The Vendor Hall in AmericasMart Building 3:

250 Spring St NW, Atlanta, Ga 30030.

But that’s not all, The Adult Vendor Hall will remain in the Hyatt, but with even more space than before!

Why This Is A Big Deal

If you’ve ever attended Dragoncon, an event in the same space as FWA that has over 70,000 people attend each year, you probably understand why we’re so excited. But if you haven’t attended Dragoncon, here’s what this means for your experience:

More Space, More Vendors

We’re expecting to have space for nearly 400 general vendors, and over 40 adult vendors in FWA 2026. That’s nearly 50% growth in our general vendor space, and 400% in our adult vendor space.

This means room for more artists, more small furry businesses, and more breathing room while you’re browsing. This will be a better experience for everyone!

Room To Grow

This move gives us long-term expansion options. As FWA keeps growing we now have the largest venue yet that can easily grow with us. And there are even more options at hotels in the area. You can expect more and more space to be added to FWA in future years.

Better Queues, Better Flow

AmericasMart is designed for events like ours: wide halls, better congestion management, and multiple access points. That means smoother lines, fewer chokepoints, and less crowd pressure overall. That, plus increasing how many people can fit into the space, means we’re expecting lines to get into Vendor Hall to be more reasonable.

Food On-Site

We’ve always felt FWA has had great food options, but as we grow we know sometimes the wait times can be a little long depending on when you’re grabbing lunch. AmericasMart will have concession style food options inside of it! You won’t even have to worry about leaving the Vendor Hall if you start feeling peckish while browsing.

We’ve also got some other stuff brewing this year that should help alleviate the food lines even more. Stay tuned on that ;)!

Getting There

We know that the new Vendor Hall location at AmericasMart will be farther from our main venues than some of our attendees may be comfortable walking, whether due to accessibility needs or simply personal preference. To ensure everyone can enjoy the expanded space with ease, we will be increasing the frequency and capacity of our shuttle service between our hotels and will be adding AmericasMart as a dedicated stop. Our goal is to make the trip between venues as smooth and accessible as possible for every member of our community.

Why Now?

We’ve actually been planning for this for a long time. If you’ve peeked at our year-end financials, you may have wondered why we were reserving money the past few years. This was why. Originally, this move was projected for 2027 or even 2028. But the success of FWA25 gave us the runway to accelerate our plans.

We did want to get this announcement out before Vendor & Artist Alley apps opened… But contract negotiations took longer than expected. So, because of that:

Vendor Applications Extended

We’re extending vendor applications by one week.

New closing date: December 7th, 2025 @ 11:59PM

If any vendors or artists hesitated to apply because they were worried about space or competition, here’s your sign. We have room. Lots of it.

Vendor applications can by found in your MyFWA account, to learn more visit the Vendor Hall Policies.