Comic con most-likely to defer in 2021

Comic Con India is a series of annual comic-based conventions held in India. The first edition was held in New Delhi in 2011 and over the years has expanded to other major cities in India such as Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad and Ahmadabad.

Over the past decade, Comic-Con India emerged as 'India's Greatest Pop Culture Experience' delivering its signature #bestweekendoftheyear to more than 1.5 million visitors. Comic-Con India is the place for everyone to 'Engage, Explore and Experience' the best that modern pop-culture, literature, and films have to offer from India and the world. Comic-Con India's properties include Delhi Comic Con, Mumbai Comic Con, Bangalore Comic Con & Hyderabad Comic Con.

Sharing about how comic con is changing the culture of Cosplay, Jatin Arora, founder of comic con shares, " We are proud of the fact that we introduced and established the culture of cosplay in India. Our first show kicked it off and hundreds of thousands of fans across India, carried that passion over the past decade to bring it to where it is now.

From the humble beginnings of just simple cosplay contests to the establishment of the Indian Championship of Cosplay, to encourage more cosplayers to turn professional, we have been working hard for the past 10 years to spread the love for cosplay. Even now, our campaign, 'Everyone can Cosplay' is aimed at making it more inclusive and encouraging more fans to express their love for their favourite characters in pop-culture through cosplay."

The success of this cosplay culture is solely with the fans, as they have organised and participated on their own volition, from online groups or forums to small events across India, cosplay has evolved and come a very long way in the country.

"Like everyone else in the Live Events business, it essentially meant shutting down for the year. It's certainly has not been a pleasant experience for anyone in the events industry, which thrives on thousands of people congregating and have fun. And unfortunately, that is the one thing, which will take the longest to come back from the pandemic, owing to the nature of this virus. Having said that, it has also given us time to be more focused digitally and also helped us develop some new initiatives that we plan to launch in the coming months, despite the pandemic being in place," adds Jatin on the impact of pandemic.

If and when the main shows are allowed to come back, he assures to expect the basic procedures of masking and social distancing to be in effect at all shows.

He shares, "Additionally, we may have to limit the number of people allowed at one time and maybe start with a smaller show. But all this is conjectured at this point in time, we may know more details as we get to the end of the year and clarity on rules around organizing large events become clearer state by state."

He also shared that it's too early to plan right now as the pandemic doesn't allow planning in advance like we used to earlier.

"Whenever we do come back, we'd hope to bring back all the key elements of our show and provide fans as normal an experience as possible," concludes Jatin.