Conventions

When Topps arrived at the San Diego Comic Con in August 2004, the company initiated a special era of convention exclusives by handing items directly to the collectors who visited. These show floor appearances soon ground to a halt, as Topps skipped attending all conventions from 2009 through 2012.

These physical convention handouts took the form of individual promotional pieces and an oversized card given away to attendees. Collectors could pick up pieces such as an 11x17 Jumbo Card of B21a Volt RON, alongside promotional cards. These promotional singles featured cards like ANS3 Promo Card P1 CHRISTINA Ugliera, an unnumbered ANS4 promo card of Batty BRAD, and ANS7 promo cards that included P1 Dough BOYD, P1 ROCK'em O-Sock'em, and P2 Drum KIT, alongside cards designated across the CC1ab through CC9ab run.

Print runs during these seven-day ordering windows varied across releases. A comic-themed Summer Comic Convention set that paired four new A/B characters with two Wacky Packages found 209 buyers at a reduced $19.99 price when Topps skipped booth distribution at San Diego, but the 2018 GPK Summer Comic Convention set struggled significantly. Buyers voiced complaints about its steep price tag, its disjointed theme, and the finished art, leaving the seven-day sale at just 131 total copies sold. That made it the lowest-selling set since the Shammy awards earlier that year.