Would a large comic/pop culture convention actually be forced to cancel or reschedule due to the COVID-19 virus threats? This was a question that everyone had been carefully monitoring for Emerald City Comic Con. It was scheduled to be held on March 12th-15th at the Washington State Convention Center. Unfortunately this was also in the same area where the most deaths for COVID-19 have been reported.

In a statement last weekend, the ECCC, who is owned by Reedpop had said that they were still going forward with the convention and would take extra precautions. That is all good but that didn’t mean that exhibitors, guests and regular attendees couldn’t just pull out due to their personal concerns. One by one major names like DC, Dark Horse and Valiant Entertainment announced that they would not be attending. From then on it seemed like every day another group of writers and artist also jumped on to social media to announce that they would also not be attending.

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Today via their website, ECCC announced that because of conversations with local authorities and groups, they had decided to postpone the event until a later date this summer.

Here is part of that statement:
“We have been closely monitoring the situation around the COVID-19 virus in Seattle, and, after many hours of conversation internally and consultation with local government officials and the tourism bureau, we have decided to move next week’s Emerald City Comic Con to Summer 2020 with date and detail announcement forthcoming. We did everything that we could to run the event as planned, but ultimately, we are following the guidance of the local public health officials indicating that conventions should now be postponed.”

In their statement they also announced that people who bought tickets don’t need to do anything to receive their refund. But that because of the number of refunds, people will need to be patient as it will arrive sometime within the next 30 days. Artist Alley participants will also receive refunds and allowed to reserve their spaces at the future event.

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It’s very unfortunate that this had to happen, but ultimately it’s the right decision given the impact of the virus in that specific area. Other events have also been affected around the US due to a fear of a bigger outbreak. Let’s see what happens in the next few week as shows like WonderCon in Anaheim are not too far out.

Was this the right decision? Let us know in the comment section below!

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Source: ECCC