LA Comic Con has just revealed exclusively to NBC 4 they are postponing the 2020 event until next September. Chris DeMoulin, CEO of Comikaze, LA Comic Con’s parent company, says they were proceeding with the event until Governor Newsom made an announcement last week about reopening the theme parks.
“In his announcement, the Governor said he had decided not to provide reopening guidelines yet for theme parks, and by extension, events. Without guidelines, there is no way for LA County, the city, or event organizers like us to know if the plans and changes we made to be COVID-safe will be right, or enough. So, with that new direction from the state, we are rescheduling,” DeMoulin says.
Up until this point organizers had been planning to hold the event in December with COVID-19 health and safety guidelines in place based on what’s been outlined by health officials so far. They had planned to reduce capacity, increase space inside the LA Convention Center, and require masks and social distancing.
LACC began selling tickets a few weeks ago in the hopes that they would eventually get the go ahead from government and health officials. But with no clear direction from the state, DeMoulin says they couldn’t continue to move forward with planning such a large event.
“We didn’t want to throw in the towel until it was clear from the government, from the state, from the county, that we just couldn’t do a safe show. So we just kept doing everything we could do like finding talent, signing talent, bringing on exhibitors. You know you get to the point in the life of any event where you have to start selling tickets, even if we didn’t know for sure if we could do the event.”
DeMoulin says when the tickets went on sale in September they sold more tickets in one day than they ever had for any previous Con. And now, every person who bought a ticket will have the option to either get a full refund, or rollover their ticket to the 2021 event. That event is already scheduled for Sept. 24-26 of 2021.
Additionally, they say those who pre-purchased limited VIP tickets to the 2020 event will be given the option to rollover their purchases to ensure they hold their VIP spots for next year, or request a full refund. Organizers noted that almost 70% of the 3-Session passes were sold during the early bird sale.
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Stars like Zachary Levi (“Shazam!”) Tom Welling (“Smallville”) and comic legend Frank Miller (“Sin City”) were scheduled to appear at the 2020 Con. DeMoulin says they have all agreed to move their appearance to the event next year. That also includes about 100 exhibitors that were contracted for this years’ Con as well.
DeMoulin says after months of trying to make it work, he and his team are disappointed that they won’t be able to bring the Con to LA this year. But they say the health and safety of the fans, the exhibitors, and staff must come first.
“We did the best we could. We wanted to have a great show and let people come together and have fun and buy cool stuff. We can’t do it in December so we’re going to do it in September. This was our 10th anniversary year. And we hope to be here for generations. So LA Comic Con is here to stay.”
