The Omicron Covid variant that’s sweeping the globe is having a continuing impact on events in the U.S. and Europe, with news in the past few days that the Nuremberg Toy Fair is canceled, Angouleme has been rescheduled, and the Las Vegas Yu-Gi-Oh! Champion Series event has been canceled.
Just days after Spielwarenmesse eG, the publisher cooperative that runs the Nuremberg Toy Fair, announced that it was acquiring Essen Game Fair (see “Nuremberg Toy Fair Organizer Acquires Essen Game Fair“), it announced that it was cancelling this year’s Nuremberg event. The cancellation notice attributed the decision to increasing numbers of exhibitor cancellations, leading the organizer “with no alternative.” The announcement follows the news last week that New York Toy Fair, the analogous event in the U.S., was also canceled (see “Toy Association Cancels New York Toy Fair“).
The organizers of the Angouleme International Comics Festival, the largest comics event in Europe, announced that this year’s Festival would be postponed from late January to March 17 to 20, 2022. The organizers are expecting that the pandemic surge will have waned by then, allowing a complete show to take place. The dates were also chosen to avoid conflict with other events while still giving publishers a chance to promote this year’s major releases.
Closer to home, Konami has canceled its second 2022 Yu-Gi-Oh! Champions Series event, planned for Las Vegas on February 26 and 27. The first, in Pasadena, was canceled, along with Fan Expo Portland, earlier this month (see “First Two 2022 Fan Event Cancellations Due to Covid“). These would have been the first in person YCS events in nearly two years. Instead, Konami will host an online Remote Duel YCO tournament on the same weekend. The event will be open to all North America Duelists, includling those that weren’t able to register for the Las Vegas event. Konami also announced that its Regional Qualifiers for the Battle of Chaos (BACH) season have been converted to Remote Duel Events for the month of February.
Source: ICV2
