Following the lead of its other West Coast brethren, Crunchyroll Expo (CRX) announced it will be holding a virtual convention in September after COVID-19 forced the in-person version into cancellation.
The virtual version of CRX will take place from Sept. 4-6 and feature everything you’d expect from an anime convention: panels with special guests, a cosplay contest and a virtual artists alley. Virtual CRX comes on the heels of the other West Coast conventions FanimeCon (held May 22 -25) and AnimeExpo (July 2-4) that ended up holding virtual versions of their conventions.
In a normal year, the spring and early summer is dominated by convention season but that’s not the case with the pandemic as many have been forced to cancel this year. Some have have made the pivot to a virtual convention while others have opted to wait till next year like SakuraCon in the Pacific northwest and AnimeBoston on the East coast.
Though a virtual con can never truly replicate the experience of fans congregating together, CRX has been thorough about trying to recreate it. The cosplay scene got Crunchyroll Hime’s Cosplay Cup with participants entering video clips of their costumes to be judged and the artist alley got a virtual makeover with a database of fan artists and merchants to search through and purchase from. While the programming hasn’t been announced yet, most notable among special guests are the voice acting cast of Rent-A-Girlfriend, which is one of the headline shows in the streaming network’s Summer lineup of simulcast anime.
It remains to be seen whether virtual CRX helps make up for what has otherwise been a lost convention season, but they’ve had the luxury of time after the pandemic left many spring conventions little time to prepare. There are still more announcements to come for virtual CRX, but what’s there so far should hopefully tide fans over until they can do it all in person.
Source: CRX website