Blizzard’s extremely popular festival BlizzCon, drawing fans from all over the world in California every November, might get delayed or canceled - right now, nobody could tell.
By this time we’re all familiar with the concept - the global COVID-19 crisis calls for serious measures and all congregations of people are to be absolutely avoided, and gaming (and otherwise!) events are getting canceled left and right.
We know about all the summer festivals, but what about the ones later in the year, like BlizzCon? Turns out even Blizzard doesn’t know the answer. Instead, they issued an official statement on the BlizzCon website.
In it, Executive Producer of BlizzCon Saralyn Smith had this to say:
“While we’re all hopeful things will look better later in the year, the bottom line is that at this point it’s too early to know whether BlizzCon 2020 will be feasible. The health of our community, employees, and everyone who helps with the show is our top consideration. It might be a few months before we know for certain if or how we’ll proceed, but as soon as we have a meaningful update, we’ll share it.”
Keep in mind, that the festival attracts 25,000 people in the event center and thousands more watching remotely through the Virtual Ticket. On top of all the announcements, new trailers, interviews, cosplay competitions and the culmination of esports leagues, BlizzCon also offers attendees - both in-person and online - access to some exclusive loot like WoW mounts and Hearthstone card backs. With that said, it would make perfect sense for the Anaheim studio to follow the example set by Xbox and many others, and run the entire thing online, recorded in the fancy studios that Blizzard owns.
The EarlyGame staff will keep a watchful eye and inform you of any further BlizzCon developments.
