COMIC-CON TO BE ONLINE-ONLY IN ’21
San Diego’s biggest summer event, Comic-Con International, has been canceled as an in-person event for the second year. A smaller event might happen in the fall.
San Diego’s biggest annual summer event, Comic-Con International, has been canceled as an in-person event for the second year.
Instead, Comic-Con will be online-only, just as it was in 2020. However, organizers said they are planning a different, smaller event sometime in November — although firm details about the plan were not available.
In a statement posted online, the nonprofit that operates the event said safety concerns over COVID-19 continue to make holding an in-person event too risky. It also canceled its WonderCon event in Anaheim in late March.
“While we are buoyed by the rollout of the vaccine and the growing number of individuals being inoculated, it appears that July will still be too early to safely hold an in-person event of the magnitude of Comic-Con,” it said in a statement.
The loss of Comic-Con for a second year is not good news for the city’s coffers or the struggling tourism industry. The possibility of a smaller three-day event in November
might be a sign of hope, but it is hard to say if it will have the same draw if held in the fall — over two fewer days.
The San Diego Convention Center Corp. estimated that last year’s July convention, if it had been in person, would have brought $166.2 million to the region. Hotel rooms alone were estimated to bring in $3.2 million in taxes. It isn’t just hotels, though, as many businesses benefit from additional spending for restaurants, transportation and other services for the 135,000 attendees.
It is also a loss for ComicCon. Its San Diego event and WonderCon brought in $24.8 million in program service revenue in 2018, according to tax returns.
Comic-Con would only say its in-person November event was in the planning stages and would be in San Diego. It is unknown if it will be called Comic-Con or if it will be held at the Convention Center.
“At this time, we are still working on specific details as to attendance capacity, badge cost, and related information, and those details will be forthcoming,” it said in a statement.
Not all is lost. ComicCon said the event will be a totally online experience from July 23 to 25. Last year, it was held for free on YouTube, and some videos topped 200,000 views.
Comic-Con said people who bought tickets for the 2020 convention and had them transferred to 2021 will now have those tickets transferred to 2022. Ticket holders can also request a refund.