NYCC 2021 and Safety
New York Comic Con 2021 had a challenge all live events and in-person gatherings are having right now. What can you do to protect the health and safety of attendees during a global pandemic? For the most part, I think NYCC was run as safely as it could be.
To start with, anyone over the age of 12 had to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to enter. You either needed to use the Clear app to create a digital ID that verified your vaccination status or show up with your physical vaccination card to get in. Guests under 12 years old had to either have a rapid negative pathogen test taken within six hours of entering or negative lab PCR test within 72 hours of entering. When you were verified, you were given a locking green wristband (a durable synthetic fabric with a locking mechanism—you could make it tighter, but not looser) to wear your entire visit. They were checking those wristbands at the entrance to the line, at the security checkpoint, and when you tapped your badge to enter the convention. If you lost your wristband, you had to be verified again.
Masks were required in all indoor spaces. The ReedPop team put together a clear explanation of what did and did not count as a mask. No, you could not just wear a Halloween mask or costume mask. Yes, it needed to cover your nose. The masks couldn’t be taken off unless you were eating and drinking indoors. Otherwise, you kept it on.
Did everyone comply? Absolutely not. Were their staff members whose thankless job was to tell people for four days straight “Put on your mask?” Yes. I’m glad they realized that was necessary. Those staff were incredibly nice and had supplies of extra masks for anyone who broke or lost theirs.
People still found ways to skirt around the rules, which also didn’t surprise me. I’ve never seen the over-priced popcorn at the Jacob Javitz Center sell so well in my life. Some people did want fresh popped popcorn. Other people wanted an excuse to walk around all day with their masks off, eating one kernel at a time if questioned about why they didn’t have their masks on. The boba tea and ice cream stands were used to similar effect, but the melt and disgust factor meant that supply couldn’t last all day.
Saturday was the worst day for people taking their masks off. Because of the massive cosplay contest, there were people who went so far as to paint on fake masks or wear latex prosthetics that opened around the mouth to pretend they had masks on that didn’t ruin their makeup or costume. You think I wanted to wear close-enough to matching masks for all my costumes? No, but I actually cared about the safety of others. It was also kind of nice to only have to paint half my face for cosplays. But you would think masks were optional for how few people in full cosplay were wearing them on Saturday afternoon and evening. This is, frankly, why I didn’t take cosplay photos. There was this strange phenomenon of masks disappearing for photos that I was not okay with.
NYCC also had significantly reduced crowds. Originally the event only sold at 50% capacity, but that number was upped about a month before the event. Still, this was not the impossible to navigate sea of people I was used to from the long ago. I could actually walk the show floor on Saturday and not have to stop unless a booth was very popular. That Saturday crowd felt like the old Thursday afternoon VIP and Press preview crowd from years ago. If there had been as many big ticket events on the show floor as usual, the line for that Chucky booth wouldn’t have been nearly as long; it was the only event booth not tied to merch or a game, so of course the line was long.
There was also hand sanitizer available at pretty much every entrance and exit to different show areas, plus stands spread out throughout the larger show areas. Signs about wearing a mask, washing your hands, and social distancing filled the convention, as well. The NYCC team also stacked the outdoor area with food trucks and encouraged people to go there for their meals instead of the much smaller food court and mobile stands on the show floor. The prices were pretty much the same throughout—a basic meal with a side for $12, fancier fair for $16, drinks and desert cost extra—so the outdoor food trucks with plenty of space to spread out were the way to go.
The only red flag area for me, which was quite sad, was the panel operations. Panels are rough. You can’t guess how many people will show up. I know when I used to do panels, the crowds only lined up as anticipated twice: I had the only 18+ (because of horror) Saturday programming against the Cosplay Masquerade at one convention, and I did a comic book musical panel that filled the mainstage on kids day at another convention. The rest of the time, what we thought would fill a room had a small crowd, and what we thought was niche turned people away. Most maddening of all? The same panel at different conventions could have opposite responses. I gave up predicting and just performed wherever I was told.
NYCC moved all of the major panels (outside of the Main Stage) to a brand new skyscraper at Jacob Javitz Center. This massive building is only five floors high, but you could see clear over the Jacob Javitz center (a four floor building) on the third floor. There were four elevators and two pairs of escalators per floor to bring you up and down the building.
The Empire Stage (the other large venue) had the fifth floor to itself. The rest of the panels (and the tabletop gaming room) were on the fourth floor. The smallest of these ballroom spaces had to seat over 200 people. All the rooms queued in the hallway or in an unused space with access to each adjoining venue. It was clearly mapped out and the staff were very helpful.
The Empire Stage was the problem. Most of these events ran on a digital reservation system. You had to grab a virtual ticket in a virtual queue and make sure it was connected to the same account as your entrance badge. In theory, you were supposed to tap into these events to verify you reserved a seat to help maintain social distancing and safety procedures.
In practice, they never checked badges for these events. Anyone could walk up and say they had a reservation and go straight in. This created an unsafe standby queue. This five to six person wide line ran about half the length of the floor in this massive building. People were constantly told to stand up, move closer together, and fill all the available space. That’s not safe right now.
Worst of all, I did not hear of one event where the entire standby line couldn’t be seated at Empire Stage. The line was for show, and would have been resolved quickly if they actually scanned the reservations as promised. Some poor people queued up under those conditions for over an hour for the Ghostbusters: Afterlife panel; everyone who waited in the line got in. There were at least a hundred empty seats by the time the panel started.
If you don’t anticipate letting standby in, don’t start a standby queue. If you can’t stick to a digital reservation system, don’t even bother. A general admission scenario would’ve been safer with how people came in waves to see the panels. I only ever saw standing room only in the smaller panel rooms, and the NYCC staff spread everyone out as best they could.
Then again, none of the panel spaces were actually socially distanced and the guests speaking onstage usually took their masks off even when they entered the crowds. Let’s just call the panel experience a wash.
Overall, NYCC felt surprisingly safe considering everything happening in the world. I personally was double masked the entire weekend, only taking them off when eating outside or in the press room. I kept hand sanitizer with me and shook no hands. If I took any kind of takeaway from a booth or interacted with merch, I cleaned my hands. I stayed away from any super crowded aisles and refused to queue for anything longer than the Press/Exhibitor security check. I’d rather be overly cautious and feel safe than relax at my first major public event in years. I still had plenty of fun.
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