New York Comic Con 2020 Going Full Digital
By George Robbins
Comic-Con is a series of conventions held throughout the year to celebrate comic books and all other forms of media related to them. Even though it is a comic convention, all different kinds of companies come in to show off whatever products they have. Any pop culture merchandise would usually be found at a Comic-Con, but mainly it focuses on comics and heroes of some degree. These conventions are usually host to thousands of people and they draw people in from all over the world with different Cons having different announcements and merchandise. Unfortunately, this year has been forced to be a little different than all years prior as we are currently dealing with a pandemic. All hope is not lost, however, as they have figured out an alternative way to hold the event.
In an effort to prevent the further spread of disease, all conventions through the end of the year, and even some for next year, have all been cancelled. One of those conventions just happened to be San Diego Comic-Con, which is the West Coast equivalent to New York Comic-Con. They found an alternative way to hold the convention in a way that would end up working out for all Comic-Con fans and the general public as well. The organizers decided to host the first ever Comic Con @ Home, which was essentially a live stream event where many panels were held online. On top of this, they had a digital marketplace set up in order to allow companies to continue selling their merchandise online.
New York Comic-Con was formed in 2006 as a way for people on the East Coast to easily go to a Comic-Con and not have to go across the country. This convention is just like the other Comic-Cons in the fact that they host thousands of people and all kinds of announcements end up being made during the event. New York Comic-Con’s venue allows for even more people than San Diego Comic-Con does and in 2014, the convention surpassed the total number of visitors that the San Diego convention had. Last year, in 2019, they had the largest celebrity-guest list that convention has seen in its entire history. This made it all the more eventful, but this year, just like San Diego Comic-Con, they have had to cancel the live event due to the pandemic.
Fortunately, also like San Diego Comic-Con, they will be doing an online event to draw people in and give them something to look forward to. SDCC went about doing things online by conducting panels over zoom and doing live Q&A’s that anybody could go on and watch during the weekend of the event. ReedPop, the company behind NYCC, revealed that they will be setting up an exclusive partnership with YouTube in order to live-stream all of their panels. Among the panels this year are ‘American Gods,’ ‘Star Trek’s’ expanded universe, Dreamworks Animation, along with various shows from Hulu and FX. Just like with SDCC, they will also have a “virtual marketplace” to allow new, and old, merchandise to be sold to fans. So although we can’t be there in person, come October 8th- October 11th, the Con is still on.