Comic-Con cancels its 2021 in-person event, announces shortened Comic-Con@Home

We’re not sure that anyone harbored genuinely high hopes for the return of a major gathering like San Diego Comic-Con this year. (Furthermore, we’re not sure than anyone would even want to indulge in that veritable hot pot of COVID particles even in the best of scenarios.) But in case you were still equating a vaccine rollout with the likelihood of the public returning to crowded events and watching celebrities barely make it through the weekend, Comic-Con has confirmed that it’s just not happening this year. The organization made a lengthy statement officially cancelling the in-person event via its official Twitter account. For good measure, it also re-confirmed the cancellation of its sibling convention, WonderCon.

“As you may be aware, due to concern for public health and safety, San Diego Comic Convention had to cancel both of its in-person events in 2020 and recently announced that our spring 2021 show, WonderCon in Anaheim, will also be canceled,” the statement reads. “In its place, WonderCon@Home will once again be held as a free online event on March 26 and 27, 2021.” It then went on to address the status of Comic-Con and a shortened online event this time around:

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. For this reason, we have made the challenging decision to postpone Comic-Con 2021 as an in-person gathering until our 2022 dates, and once again hold this year’s celebration as the free online Comic-Con@Home. Unfortunately, the challenges of this past year and the multiple postponements of our two largest events have left us with limited financial resources, so this year the online experience will be reduced to a three-day event, spanning July 23-25, 2021.

An event on a smaller scale likely makes both financial and functional sense. Last year’s at-home event failed to garner a comparable audience (even though it was totally free) and the halt in production led to so much uncertainty that studios skipped the event entirely. The handful of days still allows for an interesting event, even if it doesn’t necessarily involve Jason Mamoa motorcycling into Hall H or whatever wacky nonsense they have in store when things get back on their feet.

Anyone who had a valid pass for 2020—which was supposed to roll over into this year—can use their pass in 2022, in the event that Comic-Con makes an in-person return and you still feel like risking it. In the meantime, check out the full statement on the event’s website.