Want to attend the 2020 San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) from home, in Attack on Titan cosplay? You can!
COVID-19 hit the convention circuit hard this year. Many, such as WonderCon Anaheim and Phoenix Fan Fusion outright cancelled 2020 events amidst uncertainty of attendee safety from infection.
Comic-Con International (the non-profit that presents both SDCC and WonderCon Anaheim) held out as long as they could before cancelling the live event that annually takes over San Diego for a week every July. Normally 125,000-150,000 attendees enter the San Diego Convention Center during the four day event, and hundreds of thousands more congregate outside to attend activities set up by businesses like Sony and Verizon, shop table vendors selling personal works of art and tchotchkes, and cosplayers show off their amazing costumes. The City of San Diego and CCI hated to give up the revenue ($100-150 million per event) and notoriety, but had to acknowledge the reality of COVID-19’s impact on society and travel. Further, the city sprang to the defense of the homeless - a segment of the population severely at risk of infection - by turning the Convention Center into a huge shelter.
Not one to go down without a fight, SDCC moved quickly to create an online “virtual con” that allows everyone previously booked to host panels at the convention to present to the world via the internet. And attendance is free. With no lines. No risk you will miss a presentation because the room filled up. No need to fight through throngs of people. No risk of getting lost looking for your panel across three floors of the massive venue. No travel. No parking nightmares.
On the other hand, no vast showroom floor, no trading with other fans, no gorgeous San Diego bay, no Gaslamp Quarter, et al… But there is always next year to enjoy all of that.
Meanwhile, you can register right now for SDCC attendance and pick specific online panels you want to watch. You can sign up for a new SDCC website account or use your existing one to access the webpage with the program schedule. The page displays all the events and allows you to select the ones you want to attend, which is also a link to more information about each individual panel. On the panel information page, there may be a youTube link to the event already reserved and waiting for the go-live time.
To be clear, the link goes live, but the video will be pre-recorded. This is mostly to avoid the potential for technology nightmares trying to broadcast real panelists live across the variety of quarantine orders in so many different time zones. But while pre-recorded, some panelists have used Twitter and Facebook to solicit fan questions they can answer on-camera. Check out the social media accounts of your favorite panelist to see if you can participate!
As of this writing there does not appear to be a limit to viewers for any given video.
Several gaming panels are on the schedule with a host of topics and presenters:
Thursday, July 23
10:00am - 11:00am: P.S. NPC: Storytelling in Video Games
3:00pm - 4:00pm: Prototype and Game Pitches Publishing Your Tabletop Game
Friday, July 24
10:00am - 11:00am: Pixel Stories - Re-imagining Video Game Narrative
3:00pm - 4:00pm: Get It On the Table: Designing Your Tabletop Game
Saturday, July 25
10:00am - 11:00am: Narrative Design For Computer Games
4:00pm - 5:00pm: Learning Through Role-Playing Games
Sunday, July 26
11:00am - 12:00pm: State of the Tabletop Industry
Of course, nearly every panel will have something for game developers - worldbuilding, writing, art, creativity, team building, budgets, etc. Be sure to check out the schedule and mark yourself down for loads of goodness!
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SOURCES: comic-con.org; sandiego.gov; visitsandiego.com; latimes.com; twitter
