EVO 2020 has been officially cancelled due to COVID-19, event will take place online this summer
CEO 2020 postponed until December
The EVO Twitter has posted a message officially canceling the event this year as a result of COVID-19.
Said message also notes that players will be fully refunded, and that organizers will be holding EVO 2020 online this summer.
Many offline fighting game tournaments have been cancelled here in the first half of 2020 due to coronavirus concerns, but the Las Vegas yearly event (which was slated to play out July 31 - Aug 2 at the Mandalay Bay) still had the green light when tournament organizers updated the community back on March 18.
Head organizer, Joey "Mr. Wizard" Cuellar, noted on April 15 via Twitter, "We plan to update everyone soon on what's going on for Evo 2020. Stay safe and enjoy video games in the meantime!"
News broke early Friday afternoon that EVO 2020 that the event had been officially cancelled and that refunds for all purchased tickets would be issued.
You can see the full statement by clicking on the thumbnail here:
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Recent reports from prospective attendees claimed that they had received unprompted refunds on their EVO 2020 hotel room deposits in both the Mandalay Bay as well as the Luxor.
Geoff "GeoffTheHero" Mendicino started a thread with such a post on Thursday, which saw a few others (namely Dippykun and VANTAGE_GUNSHOT) mention that they'd also noticed refunds in their accounts.
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EVO is just the latest in a growing line of fighting game event cancellations. Capcom cancelled the first half of their 2020 Capcom Pro Tour back on March 25, less than a week before Rick "TheHadou" Thiher and his team made the call not to hold Combo Breaker. We also saw the cancellation of the entire Arc World Tour 2020 at the end of March.
Alex Jebailey had been heavily considering postponing CEO until December of this year, and made the decision to do so official Friday afternoon.
With the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic deterring people from grouping together, the fighting game community has seen an uptick in the number of online tournaments. EVO will be following in suit, it seems, as organizers are "bringing the event online this summer!"
The EVO 2020 mainstage titles include Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Street Fighter 5: Champion Edition, Tekken 7, Soul Calibur 6, Samurai Shodown, Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[cl-r], Dragon Ball FighterZ, and Granblue Fantasy: Versus. There was also a special Marvel vs. Capcom 2 eight-player invitation tournament planned.
You can check back here on EventHubs for future EVO 2020 developments as they're made public.
