Yes, con costs are very expensive, even without travel (depending on the con and what you want to do). It's a definite change from cons pre-2000 IMO. I still recall how, when I was visiting a friend in California, it was a spur of the moment trip down to San Diego for Comic Con because there was going to be an Angel panel with the new showrunners. My friends dropped me off at the box office and I got a ticket for the day.

I was able to see everything I wanted to, and though there were a lot of people there it wasn't very crowded given the space. And the ticket cost far less than at the show cons I'd been to, probably because you weren't guaranteed to see anything.