None of us want this kind of con crud!
None of us want this kind of con crud! Nathalie Graham

Emerald City Comic Con (ECCC), the convention that attracted nearly 100,000 people to the Washington State Convention Center last year, will be postponed due to concerns about the novel coronavirus outbreak in the King County area.

"After many hours of conversation internally and consultation with local government officials and the tourism bureau," ECCC wrote in a statement, "we have decided to move next week’s Emerald City Comic Con to Summer 2020."

ECCC was scheduled to run from March 12 to March 15. Earlier this week, when the death toll started ticking up in Western Washington, many fans, attendees, and exhibitioners questioned whether the event would be called off. ECCC said that the show would go on and that cleaning best practices would be implemented.

The number of infected cases and deaths continued to rise this week as publishers like Dark Horse Comics and Penguin Random House announced that they would not be attending. More exhibitors followed and withdrew from the event. As public pressure and fear mounted, ECCC started offering ticketholders full refunds on Wednesday. Here is the lengthy list of all the exhibitors and guests who pulled out of ECCC.

But, on Friday morning, after 14 confirmed deaths in Washington and after their schedule was left bare with all the cancellations, ECCC announced that the event will be postponed.

"Our hearts go out to the entire Seattle community, everyone impacted by the COVID-19 virus, and all of you, the nearly 100,000 amazing human beings who look forward to this event each year," ECCC's statement read. They will fully refund all tickets.

Other big events have announced their cancellations and postponements this week as well. The Seattle Womxn's March that was rescheduled from January because of snow and was supposed to be held on Sunday, International Women's Day, will be hosted entirely online. The Children's Film Festival Seattle has also been postponed. Here's a full list of canceled events in the area.