After spending quite some time hesitating to speak to whether or not the event would go as planned, Anime Expo 2020 has been canceled. This is due to the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. As a reminder, California is under a shelter-in-place order at the moment, with its scheduled to last until at least May 3, 2020. The goal was to protect the health and safety of everyone would would have attended. Anime Expo 2021 will be held July 2-5, 2021.

When announcing the Anime Expo 2020 cancellation, full details about refunds and badge rollovers were confirmed on the official site. While all of the details haven’t been worked out, people will be able to get their money back for their badges or choose to have it apply to Anime Expo 2021 instead. Emails will go out to those who reserved.

Hotel reservations were also addressed. If people booked hotels on their outside of the reserved Anime Expo block, they will be responsible for canceling their reservations. If someone used ConferenceDirect to book, their room will be canceled. (But maybe, to be safe, double check to be certain.)

This is one of many events that have been canceled in April 2020 as a result of COVID-19. Both gamescom 2020 and Momocon 2020 will not be held as planned. Activision and Blizzard are also considering how BlizzCon 2020 will be handled, though it has not been canceled yet.

The announcement also comes one day after Anime Expo released its own Zoom backgrounds. It put together four based upon the convention for people to use while engaging in video calls for work or pleasure.

We've put together a list of official anime/video game backgrounds to help you jazz up your next meeting, including some Anime Expo exclusives! Take a look! 👉 https://t.co/SdSxuEppJX pic.twitter.com/xZ3OKf3kTK — Anime Expo (@AnimeExpo) April 17, 2020

Anime Expo 2020 was supposed to be held July 2-5, 2020 in Los Anegeles, California. Each year, it is a celebration of not only anime, but also video games, as companies like Aksys do tend to hold panels and make announcements. Anime Expo 2021 will be held July 2-5, 2021.