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Blizzard Will Not Be Holding A Physical BlizzCon In 2021

Published Wed, 26 May 2021 12:45:10 -0500

Blizzard Entertainment dropped a bit of a surprise announcement today as there will be no BlizzCon 2021 happening this year. At least, not in the physical sense. Those of you hoping for a return to Anaheim this year will have to wait until 2022, as the company revealed today they will not be holding an event this November due to the continued issues with the COVID-19 pandemic. While the country is slowly getting vaccinated, it seems the state of California isn't moving at the pace the company would like for them to actually start planning an event in a convention hall. It looks like the company will be aiming to do another BlizzConline event in 2022, but plans for that are super early so there are no more details than what we have here. You can read the statement below from Saralyn Smith, Executive Producer of BlizzCon.

I hope you're all staying safe and well. As guidelines in California around in-person gatherings continue to evolve and the status of the pandemic fluctuates around the globe, the teams across Blizzard have been discussing what this means for one of the events we miss the most: BlizzCon. We know some of you might be wondering about your own plans to potentially cross the country—not to mention oceans—and meet your friends, family, and fellow community members in California, so today, we wanted to give you a heads-up that we've decided we will not be holding BlizzCon this year.

Building an in-person BlizzCon is an epic and complex affair that takes many months of preparation—not just for us, but also for the many talented production partners, esports pros, hosts, entertainers, artists, and other collaborators we team up with locally and globally to put all of the pieces together. The ongoing complexities and uncertainties of the pandemic have impacted our ability to properly move forward on many of these fronts, and ultimately we're now past the point where we'd be able to develop the kind of event we'd want to create for you in November.

But we don't want to let too long go by before we connect with everyone again. So in the meantime, we're planning a global event for the early part of next year, combining an online show along the lines of our recent BlizzConline with smaller in-person gatherings, and we'll share more as our plans come together.

We very much look forward to celebrating with you all again. Until then, we'll see you in Azeroth, Outland, Sanctuary, and all the other worlds we call home.

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