COVID-19 has dictated the narrative in 2020, forcing postponements, cancellations, and making a number of nerdy events on the calendar seem nearly impossible to pull off. Some of these have adapted successfully, like Summer Games Done Quick raising over $2.3 million for charity despite being online only for the first time ever. A number of events went the digital route, or were postponed indefinitely. The LA Comic Con, on the other hand, is forging ahead with plans for a live, in-person event, almost as though there weren’t a pandemic currently going on.
In this digitally connected age, the easiest, safest way to keep major events on the calendar is to host them online. Tokyo Game Show went virtual, and was still able to show off all kinds of exciting gameplay footage and announcement trailers. The only thing missing was the ability to cruise the show floor trying out new titles at demo kiosks. That experience is something unique, but the safety of guests is paramount, and the risk is just too high in many places to safely hold an event of this size.
This is why the LA Comic Con’s decision to press ahead with a live event from December 11 to 13 is so baffling to many, even with enhanced safety guidelines in place. The event’s organizers are assuring prospective guests that they have been working closely with state and local officials to ensure the event can be held safely. In 2019, attendance of the event reached 123,000. For this year, the organizers will cap attendance by splitting each day into two sessions with a limit of 12,000 tickets per session. That is still a lot of people in one space at one time. The New York Comic-Con made the call to go online only, as it could not find a safe way to host the event live.
The pandemic has affected almost everything in some shape or form. A survey at the Game Developers Conference this year revealed that 1/3 of games had been delayed by COVID-19 in some way. There’s just no way around it. While folks would like things to return to normal, if it’s not safe to do so, taking an event online is a reasonable alternative.
Cramming thousands of people into a convention center, in a city that is still in the state of California’s most restricted tier of recovery, could be a recipe for disaster. Even in times with no pandemic to speak of, attendees of Games Done Quick events joke about having the “GD Flu” after the event, which is part of why Awesome Games Done Quick announced it will be online in 2021, as well.
Only time will tell how this will shake out. But until the results are known, it may seem ill advised to some for the LA Comic Con to go ahead as currently planned.
Source: LA Times
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