Dragon Con announces return to in-person event this Labor Day weekend

ATLANTA - The organizers of Dragon Con, the Southeast’s largest multi-media and pop culture convention, announced this week it will return to an in-person event this Labor Day weekend.

A lot of questions still linger about what the event will look like this year as organizers continue to work with state and local health officials, but organizers do plan to have a hybrid offering for those who do not feel comfortable attending in person. Right now, they are planning for the best with less than 100 days until the kick-off to the 2021 event.

"We all know that Dragon Con is awesome and we all need a break from the reality of the past 15 months. Our goal, as always, is to have a safe and fun convention. This year, protecting the health and safety of our fans, volunteers, exhibitors, and guests as well as the hotel and restaurant employees who help make it all work means that we will have to make some changes," a post on the webpage reads.

Last year, when the decision was made to cancel in-person events in Downtown Atlanta organizers found a unique way to put on a virtual con. They called it Dragon Con Goes Virtual and it utilized social media platforms such as Discord to interact, streamed more than 600 hours of programming, and the event even had a virtual marketplace on the Dragon Con website. By all accounts, the free event was a huge success.

While organizers said the virtual events will be scaled back a bit, they will still be offered to members of the annual event.

"For those who want to stay home, we have another episode of Dragon Con Goes Virtual, featuring overlapping coverage of the live convention and exclusive programming just for the platform from our amazing fan tracks," organizers wrote. "For those who missed it, last year’s version of Dragon Con Goes Virtual was unbelievable, with multiple channels of programming across three different platforms."

Unlike last year, streaming memberships will be $10 and a week-long membership is $115. Organizers have not put individual day membership on sale yet. 

During a typical year, Dragon Con draws about 85,000 visitors and fills the Sheraton-Atlanta Hotel, Hilton Atlanta, Atlanta Marriott Marquis, the Hyatt Regency Atlanta, the Westin Peachtree, AmericasMart, the Peachtree Center, and SunTrust Plaza as well as the surrounding streets. Downtown businesses are looking forward to the return of the five-day-long event that has had a $75 million economic impact on the area in the past, according to the Atlanta Visitor and Conventions Bureau.

The convention is scheduled from Thursday, Sept. 2 to Monday, Sept. 6.

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