One person, twenty years of cons, and a spreadsheet that got out of hand.

Orlando has been going to San Diego Comic-Con for more than twenty years, and in his own words:

"I wanted to make something that is useful and meaningful to convention attendees and vendors alike. Every year for SDCC, I would put together spreadsheets keeping track of exclusives I cared about, vendors I wanted to see, and what my budget is. After keeping the idea on the back burner for years, I decided to finally make ConLoot!"

— Orlando Salvatore, founder

He builds software for a living — engineering, in games — so the tool got built properly rather than as another tab: every exclusive pinned to the booth selling it, working offline in a hall where nothing else does, and real sold prices next to every item, because the budget column was always the one that decided things.

"Attendees and vendors alike" is the part that shaped everything since. Collectors needed to know what's on the floor and where. Vendors turned out to want the same thing from the other side of the table — a way to be found by the people already looking for them. That's ConLoot. Same person still building it.

If there's ever a paid tier, it will be optional extras on top of what's free today, and it will be announced before it exists — not switched on behind a listing someone already built. What is free now stays free. We'd rather promise that plainly than promise "free forever" and have you wonder what the fine print is.

And the reason free-for-vendors isn't a trick: the catalog is the product. A collector opens ConLoot to find out what's on the floor and where. A vendor listing their items is not a favour we're doing them — it is literally the app working. Charging admission at that door would be charging for the thing that makes ConLoot worth opening.