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Disney announced on Thursday that this year’s Star Wars Celebration, the yearly convention where Star Wars fans gather as Lucasfilm drops major announcements, was canceled. Celebration will return on Aug. 18-21, 2022.
“At Star Wars Celebration, the health and safety of our fans, attendees, exhibitors, guests and staff is always our number one priority,” organizers said in a post on Star Wars.com. “Due to the global impact of the COVID-19 virus and in speaking with local and state authorities on the latest public health guidelines related to indoor conventions, we have made the decision to cancel Star Wars Celebration for 2020.”
Those who’d already purchased tickets to Celebration 2020 can request a refund within a limited period in exchange for cash or credit to purchase Celebration merchandise, and can also transfer of their ticket to the 2022 event. Should they choose to transfer, organizers are offering a “free exclusive Star Wars Celebration stormtrooper character pin,” and say that all exclusive merchandise announced for Celebration 2020 will be available online soon.
Last year, at the 2019 Star Wars Celebration, the dead spoke! Or at least laughed ominously, when Lucasfilm released the first trailer for Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker. We also got announcements of a new Star Wars VR game, reveals for Jedi: Fallen Order, our first look at The Mandalorian and the final season of Clone Wars, plus more teases of the Galaxy’s Edge park, which opened a month later.
A lot has changed in both the Star Wars world and our own since the last Celebration. The Skywalker saga is complete, The Mandalorian turned out to be a huge success, and Galaxy’s Edge saw thousands of lightsaber-waving tourists. But Disney’s parks are figuring out how to reopen under safe coronavirus guidelines, while movie release schedules have shuffled like musical chairs after theaters and film and TV productions shut down around the world. Even a significant chunk of the American comics industry was put in a forced pause for two months, leading to a delay in Lucasfilm’s plans to expand on the High Republic time period with Project Luminous.
Just because there’s no Celebration 2020 doesn’t mean we won’t see any Star Wars news this summer. We could get online updates on future movies — perhaps Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi’s upcoming flick? — future Disney Plus series, like the untitled Cassian Andor and Obi-Wan-focused shows, as well as the second season of The Mandalorian. Shooting on Mando season 2 reportedly wrapped in early March, so the show is likely still on track for an October 2020 release.
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