Don’t attend conventions if you don’t feel comfortable but if you do, make sure to have fun and plan accordingly. I won’t say the conventions were 100% safe, but taking health into consideration made them a bit safer. Their pre-SDCC stance and their applied Covid protocols, allowed San Diego Comic-Con to make it feel as if the event did care about people’s safety and reduced chances of criticism over their handling of Covid. Prior to the event they used large press junkets to solidify their stance on Covid, wisely emphasizing the need to play safe, not sorry. During the convention, San Diego Comic-Con maintained consistent regulations and reminders for attendees to mask up. In my opinion, SDCC was better at bridging Covid protocol and reaction. By initially rescinding their Covid protocols and then not regularly enforcing them, Anime Expo did a poor job managing attendees’ experiences with Covid and the overall event. These checks and reminders of the Covid policies made me feel safe when attending the event.īoth AX and SDCC’s handling of Covid was to benefit attendees and try to mitigate dealing with drastic reactions. Many of the volunteers and security guards I saw gently reminded people to put on masks when they needed to. When inside SDCC, an automated message was periodically played reminding attendees of the masking policies emphasizing it was for their health and safety. If broken or lost you would need to visit the verification sites again and wait in potentially long lines. An issue I had with the bands is that they were paper-based and easily breakable. While attending SDCC, I was able to retrieve a verification wristband at several locations near or in the convention center. SDCC copied these same steps of verifying, masking, and consistent reminders. Inside the convention center, ongoing messages warned attendees to wear their masks and ensure it was covering their noses. At these conventions, you did a Covid verification outside the main entry for the convention centers, got a wristband, then were able to wear it for all con days. It took me a few hours each of the four days just to trek to one of the entry lines where expo workers/volunteers had us walk through a security scanner, checked Covid wristbands (which you got in a different line), and went through a few bags.Ĭomic-Con International used two prior conventions they own as testing for their Covid policies, Comic-Con Special Edition in November 2021 and Wondercon in April 2022. Every day, attempting to enter the expo was hazardous as there were masses of people confusedly encircling the site to find an entry line. While attending the convention, my worry for people’s health and safety crept back around due to Anime Expo’s overcrowding and lack of mask enforcement. With these rules reinstated, I believed it was safer to attend the convention again. Anime Expo would re-implement vaccination and testing checks after receiving online backlash from attendees and popular figures within the anime community critical of the event’s plan to handle Covid. Due to my own concerns surrounding the highly transmissible nature of Omicron, I felt that AX’s reversal of Covid policies put convention goers at risk and I was better off not attending. ![]() During this time the Omicron variant was rising throughout California with no widely available vaccine specific to the Covid strain. Weeks before AX 2022 launched, the convention announced on social media and through email that they would rescind their former Covid vaccine and testing verification policies while still requiring masks. As an attendee of both conventions, I believe AX and SDCC handled the Covid situation differently, creating two distinct feelings as they approached normality. This left attendees with questions regarding how the conventions’ Covid policies would impact their enjoyment and safety. Both conventions came back in July of 2022 after the surges of vaccinations and testing, however, Covid keeps evolving. Both Anime Expo (July 1-4) in Los Angeles and San Diego Comic-Con (July 21-24) in San Diego didn’t host conventions due to the changing health risks with the Covid pandemic. It had been two years since two of California’s largest fan events returned to in-person attendance. Yet, the mask around my face and on others reminded me there was a change, Covid. For a second, nothing much had really changed. As I walked through both Anime Expo (AX) and San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) in July, I felt the familiarity and nostalgia of traveling to these large events.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |