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context: comics > how big?
Conventions
I'll just mention the biggest here - and of course it's the biggest in the world, not just in Japan. It's not a big professional affair, but a twice-yearly convention for self-published comics, running for three days. It has around 35,000 exhibitors, its catalogue runs to 1,400 pages, and I've seen 350,000 and 500,000 offered as its attendance. It is the biggest public gathering in Japan.
Comiket web site (in Japanese)
Comparisons: I've often been at the UK's self-published comics event, and attendances are well into double figures. The UK's biggest comic convention attracted well over 1,000 people. When I went to the US's largest, in San Diego, attendance was around 15,000. The only event approaching Comiket would be France's Angouleme convention, a superb pan-European event involving all the big publishers, which lasts 6 days and attracts a quarter of a million people.