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New York Comic Con 2020 has been cancelled. It was scheduled to be the last major comic convention of the year.
Reedpop has informed Newsarama that this year's physical New York Comic Con (NYCC) convention would be replaced by an online experience over the convention's YouTube page.
This online version of the convention is dubbed New York Comic Con's Metaverse. Reedpop is hosting its inaugural Metaverse event the weekend of August 14-16, before the NYCC Metaverse in October.
"From October 8-11, the New York Comic Con YouTube channel will exclusively live stream panels from leading entertainment brands," according to a Reedpop spokesperson.
Reedpop has confirmed the involvement of Starz (for American Gods), CBS All Access (for Star Trek), DreamWorks Animation, Hulu, and FX for its online NYCC event.
Reedpop's plans for the YouTube-centric 2020 New York Comic Con will include pre-recorded and live panels, live Q&As, professional workshops, and tabletop gaming. There are plans for a virtual marketplace where exhibitors and creators can sell merchandise, as well as personalized autographs.
They also plan to use YouTube's Community feature, as well as Reedpop's own Discord community.
"Our mantra is to continue to make the next right decision with the information we have for our fans, our customers and our teams," Reedpop's global head Lance Festerman told Newsarama back in March. "This is an incredibly humbling situation in that anything you think you know, in a few days or hours, you may not.
After the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March, Reedpop (and other major convent organizers) have been forced to cancel/postpone/reschedule its public events - and in cases like these, segue to an online component.
"Insurance does not cover anything that is happening now. Nearly any insurance policy that could be obtained (and most are very narrow in scope) would carve out an event like what we are experiencing," Festerman told Newsarama previously. "So we are shouldering the sunk costs ourselves where appropriate, refunding to fans in all cases and keeping our eyes on the long term."
For the past two years, Reedpop's New York Comic Con events have boasted attendance figures of over 250,000.
The Jacob K. Javits Convention Center - which has been NYCC's home since its launch in 2006 - was co-opted back in March 2020 by the U.S. government as a field hospital for those with COVID-19.
