ApollyCon 2026: Saturday & Sunday Wrap

Last Updated: Thursday, April 26th, 9 PM 2026

Next year’s ticket sales open June 28th!

📌 Bookmark this page. I’ll be updating it throughout ApollyCon 2026 as announcements come in. For the full event guide, read our ApollyCon 2026 everything you need to know post. My disability means I’m very selective about the events I go to, and this was not on my list, but I still neeeed all the goss.

You’ve made it to the finale. If you’ve been following along since Thursday’s Coronation chaos and the JLA jewellery-as-spoiler debacle, congratulations on your commitment to parasocial book event coverage. This is the wrap-up post covering Saturday night’s Villains Ball, Sunday’s brunch reveal (yes, the Rebecca Yarros situation), the Primal tier post-mortem, and — the big one — what ApollyCon 2027 actually looks like. Buckle in.

If you need to catch up first: the full Day 2 post with the Coronation recap and swag bag breakdown lives over in the ApollyCon 2026 live updates.

Friday Update Real Quick

• Friday at ApollyCon 2026 was a doozy. The Hotties and Hellions panel reminded us that monsters are still hot, and choosing the bear (or vampire) is a valid lifestyle choice. It was a fun PJ-led discussion, which, frankly, correct; we can be both productive and comfortable, thank you very much.

• Jennifer L. Armentrout’s jewelry choices were full of spoilers, so grab some picks and get to brainstorming, because it might just hold the answers to the upcoming Blood and Ash arc.

• The Healing Plotline panel and the Why Choose panel were packed, so authors, grab your pens, you know what that means. And readers, be on the lookout for more, more, more.

It’s Saturday: The Morning News

We had another 200 Deity tickets show up today for a total of something like 1,700 readers, which is simply insanity. Because of this, some logistics had to come into play:

• The 3-Item Limit Enforcement: To maintain the schedule for the 12:00 PM lunch break, staff strictly enforced the three-item signing limit (books, plates, or swag). While Friday allowed for some discretion, Saturday morning saw line-minders actively counting items for the Big Four (JLA, Yarros, Ward, Weaver). We get it, but it is a little disappointing for those who fought so hard to get tickets and be there.
• Collaborative Vendor Defense: Following the trend from Friday, smaller vendors in the back of the Maryland Ballroom established a joint overflow zone. Yey team work. Authors like Elizabeth Helen and RL Caulder were seen coordinating with neighboring booths.
• Drayage Conflict: Out of stock? Yup. Several indie authors reported ongoing delays with the Freeman drayage service. Due to the strict one-box carry-in rule, vendors had to wait for official delivery for Saturday-specific restocks. Everything seems back to normal now. Freeman charges by “CWT” (per 100 lbs), often rounding up. For an indie author, this can cost thousands of dollars just to get books from the hotel’s back door to their table. Rude. Release the books!

News & “Drops”

• Wristband Status: By 9:15 AM, the registration desk confirmed that all all-tier wristbands for Jennifer L. Armentrout and Rebecca Yarros had been collected. No “standby” line was authorized for the morning session.
• The B&N Restock: The Barnes & Noble pop-up bookstore received a Saturday morning shipment of Onyx Storm deluxe editions. However, these were restricted to one per person and sold out by 10:30 AM. If you got yours, share the love, and post picks.

We’ve also been joined by the Ascended ticket holders officially! Hopefully, all of the delays and stock issues won’t affect them too much. After all, they set aside their day, time, and money to be here. See below for some of the Ascended swag items available.

@somenoveltea apollycon 2026 ascended swag bag haul !! (i'm literally so tired i'm running on 2 hours of sleep and a dream) #apollycon #apollycon2026 #ascended #bookcon #bookhaul ♬ original sound – maddie

The Villains Ball: Saturday Night Roundup

The Villains Ball is the one event at ApollyCon where people decide that fun evening out totally means full structural armour and articulated mechanical wings, and honestly? Correct. Absolutely smashing it.

The defining trend of 2026 is Cursed Fae Courts cosplay. We’re sure to see so many everywhere, if you have any costumes planned and want to show them off, drop your Insta handle in my DMs or in the comments. (I’m not officially on social media, but for this, I made an exception, and later on, we’ll have lots more fun things to build together there, so throw me a follow.)

Thorn crowns, silver paint, the full unseelie court in formal wear, is totally a thing. The other dominant force we predict will be, naturally, Empyrean black and gold. The Fourth Wing crowd is never not showing up, and after three books’ worth of emotional damage, they’ve earned the right to dress like Violette’s entire aesthetic is a lifestyle choice. Yarros does like to torture: here is the series on what we think she’s trying to do with the next books: Probably True Theories Part 1, The Wildest Theories Part 2, Everything We Know but Dread Part 3.

While Cursed Fae Courts was everywhere, and lots of fun little pop-up villains you wouldn’t expect to see at a romantasy-based con, the Unseelie King aesthetic won the night. The Secret Corner table was active from 8:30 PM to 10:00 PM. Readers who provided the password Gilded (from the latest indie newsletters) were able to secure early copies of The Stars Are Dying sequel and a new novella from Rebecca F. Kenney.

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Sunday Brunch: The Rebecca Yarros Mystery

The Sunday brunch is where ApollyCon actually tells you things, they keep you hanging till the very end huh? In 2026, the question hanging over it was very specifically: what is Rebecca Yarros doing with a 176-page secret project?

Well, the answer is in, drum roll please. When asked about the 176-page count, Yarros said she wanted something to hold us over, something we could pick apart, and she wasn’t joking. The project title will be The Empyrean: A Companion Codex. A lot of you guessed right in the discussion posts, and if you’re a big fan of this series, you need to get your hands on it right away. It will absolutely help us puzzle out some of the mysteries not yet revealed in the series. For those who don’t know what the codex is, it’s like, a guide to the world. It should have a map of the Barrens, and the first official timeline of the Great War.

She also confirmed her upcoming contemporary novel, titled Variation, is set for release on September 29, 2026.

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The Primal Post-Mortem: Was It Actually Worth It?

Once the signings are done, the swag is unboxed, the emotional damage from Thursday’s Coronation has mostly been processed, let’s actually answer the question everyone spent £300+ asking themselves in January: was the Primal tier worth it in 2026?

Short answer: yes, books are always worth it. Have you lost your mind? The longer answer is that the signed War of Two Queens event edition alone justifies the cost for anyone already deep in the Blood and Ash world, and the JLA reveal at the Coronation — that jewellery spoiler — turned out to be exactly what people suspected. Of course, we have the big brains in the literary world. The visual spoiler format is one of the cleverest things ApollyCon does, and I’m here for it.

There were also a few disappointed right away with the long lines, garbled news, and lack of organization. This is the curse of all conventions, unfortunately, but when you live and breathe these worlds, it can be really annoying.

Also, the manual ticket audit on Thursday, ouch. Fire issues aside, was there a better way they could have handled that? Not sure. Maybe there needs to be better game plans for issues like that. I’m not sure people should have been punished if they weren’t sure it was explicitly wrong. This is an Eventbrite problem and adjustments in the future for things like this, that are now foreseeable, should be planned. Basically, you could have gone into your profile to change your name, address, and so on, plus it gave you an option to upgrade your tier for free.

Some people weren’t trying to be sneaky and put aside plans, only to be punished.

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ApollyCon 2027: The Dates You Actually Need

The book world has grown used to a spring trip to National Harbor, it has a whole rhythm to it, cherry blossoms, the vague sense that April is for books, smut, swords, and flowery dress-up. ApollyCon 2027 is breaking that tradition next year.

Official Dates: August 19–21, 2027.
Venue: Expected to return to the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, National Harbor, MD — not yet officially confirmed.

Author interest forms are already live via JLA’s site, which is a good sign that the August slot is locked rather than provisional. So we can basically take this as confirmed, but if something happens by Sunday, I’ll update you. Apparently, this change will allow for a larger programming block, which is desperately needed.

Now, I’ll be honest about the August thing from where I’m sitting in Florida as a heat connoisseur: Maryland in August is…I mean, Maryland is humid. For those of us with chronic illness, or any kind of setbacks, the heat will be a personal attack — and I am one of those people, hello RA and fibromyalgia, you uninvited guests. Of course, the world doesn’t sway for everyone. I am not saying it’s a dealbreaker. I’m saying pack accordingly, hydrate aggressively, and know where the air conditioning is at all times and where to Take. The. Breaks. We will have a full 2027 survival guide up before tickets go on sale.

Update: In response to feedback about the August humidity in Maryland, organizers announced that the 2027 layout will include an expanded “Cooling & Quiet Zone” specifically designed for attendees with disabilities and chronic illnesses. Win.

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Indie Stars: Who Won the Weekend

Every year, there’s a conversation about which Indie authors we should be watching in the fantasy space for the next year. This year, the answer from almost every direction I’ve heard is: the indie breakout acts.

Drethi A. had a moment at this convention, for real. The pre-order panic (the window closed faster than expected) was a nightmare, but it proved that everyone wants a bit of Drethi A. Whether that translates to the charts in the next cycle will be the real test. I’m excited to see which Indie writers will rise to the top and claim their rightful place as awesome.

I am fully convinced that we will start seeing a shift in publishing in the next few years. I have my finger on the pulse…ok I read a lot of gossip. Publishing houses are becoming more independent, the big publishers are forcing authors to sign their work over to AI monsters (no one wants to read AI books, eesh), authors are starting to understand the real money comes from owning their work, fan-fic writers are on the move up, and pretty soon, many aren’t going to wait for permission from a publishing house. Watch this space.

Updated: Stacia Stark and Drethi A. were the absolute breakout stars. Both authors saw record line-wait times for indie tables, with Drethi A. selling out of her entire stock of Seven Sins by 2:00 PM on Saturday. Applause all around.

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