As Expected, SDCC 2020 Has Been Cancelled

As many of us have already been expected, San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) has pulled the plug on the 2020 event due to the ongoing global health crisis.

SDCC is the second Comic-Con International convention to get cancelled this season, with WonderCon having announced its cancellation back on March 12th.  This isn’t exactly a surprising move to many of us who have been paying attention.  Literally hundreds of other conventions have been cancelled at this point, and most projections seem to indicate it’ll still be somewhat active in the summer. 

Here are some tidbits regarding the cancellation from their website:

For the first time in its 50-year history San Diego Comic Convention (SDCC), the organizers behind the annual pop culture celebration, announced today with deep regret that there will be no Comic-Con in 2020. The event will instead return to the San Diego Convention Center from July 22-25, 2021.

Recognizing that countless attendees save and plan for its conventions each year, and how many exhibitors and stakeholders rely upon its events for a major portion of their livelihood, they had hoped to delay this decision in anticipation that COVID-19 concerns might lessen by summer. Continuous monitoring of health advisories and recent statements by the Governor of California have made it clear that it would not be safe to move forward with plans for this year.

Similarly, WonderCon Anaheim, which was to have been held April 10-12, 2020 will return to the Anaheim Convention Center from March 26-28, 2021.

[…]

SDCC also announced that individuals who purchased badges for Comic-Con 2020 will have the option to request a refund or transfer their badges to Comic-Con 2021. All 2020 badge holders will receive an email within the next week with instructions on how to request a refund. Exhibitors for Comic-Con 2020 will also have the option to request a refund or transfer their payments to Comic-Con 2021 and will also receive an email within the next week with instructions on how to process their request.

In the next few days onPeak, Comic-Con’s official hotel affiliate, will be canceling all hotel reservations and refunding all deposits made through them. There is no need for anyone who booked through onPeak to take any action, including trying to cancel their reservations online or contacting the company via phone as the process will be handled automatically. Those who booked rooms through onPeak will be notified when refunds have been completed.

This isn’t a huge surprise as the Governor of California’s April 14th statements put a lot of doubt on a lot of California events in the future, putting both the 2020 and the 2021 events in danger of cancellation.  It seems that until there’s a vaccine on the market, which would likely take well over a year, California plans on keeping the ban on mass gatherings in place.

I’m incredibly sad about this, but at the same time I’ve been rooting for this to happen for weeks.  I even wrote an open letter to CCI begging them to do this very thing.  I love this convention so incredibly much and it’s genuinely the only time I get to hang out with the majority of my friends, but we are fooling ourselves if we think we’ll be out of the woods in July.  This is going to effect our way of life for a while whether we like it or not.

Even if some of the more optimistic models are correct, an event like this is just asking to cause another spike in infections whether we want it to or not.  The event attracts over 135,000 attendees from around the world each year, so all it would take is one infected person to create a new international surge to occur.  It’s really best that we don’t have the event, as painful as that is to say.

SDCC was scheduled to take place July 23rd-26th at the San Diego Convention Center.  The 2021 event is scheduled to take place July 21st-25th.  

Stay happy. Stay healthy. Wash your hands.  Support content creators and small businesses. We’ll see you in 2021. 

Author: Angel Wilson

Angel is the admin of The Geekiary and a geek culture commentator. They earned a BA in Film & Digital Media from UC Santa Cruz. They have contributed to various podcasts and webcasts including An Englishman in San Diego, Free to Be Radio, and Genre TV for All. They identify as queer.

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