The coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic and its effects continue to be felt across the world and Africa has not been spared. Several lockdown measures and restrictions on movements have been made, forcing many events to either be cancelled/postponed or moved online.

So far, the Cape Town International Animation Festival together with Comic Con Capetown, Squid Mag’s FxF Nights and stikk! fest have been cancelled. Other events such as the Accra Animation Film Festival and Annecy Animation Festival have been moved online. Still, some events haven’t made any major announcements yet but most likely will in the coming months.

Below is the status of the major geek events in Africa. Keep tabs on this page as we’ll update once we have new information on the status of the events.

Cape Town International Animation Festival x Comic Con Cape Town [postponed]

CTIAF which would have happened together with Reed Pop’s Comic-Con Cape Town (1 – 3 May, South Africa) has been postponed to 2021. The new dates for the film festival and comic convention is 24 – 27 April, 2021. CTIAF put out a statement on social media:

After closely monitoring the rapidly changing COVID-19 pandemic & with recent developments, including the presidential address, we have made the decision to postpone the Cape Town International Animation Festival (24-27 April 2021)

You will all have a choice between refunding your ticket or rolling it over to the new dates in 2021. This process will be managed hand-in-hand with ticketing partner Howler.

CTIAF is not saying goodbye, but rather “see you all soon!”

stikk! fest [cancelled]

stikk! Festival of Stickers and Posters (25, April, Ghana) has been cancelled with no new dates announced.

The festival was cancelled in keeping with Ghana’s lockdown measures in curbing the spread of the coronavirus. stikk! Fest, which is the first of its kind was scheduled to be part-exhibition and part-marketplace for stickers and posters.

FxF Animation Nights [cancelled]

FxF Nights (last Saturday bi-monthly, Ghana) has been cancelled for the rest of the year. In light of the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic and the restriction on movement and gathering in Ghana, Squid Magazine regrets to announce that it’s bi-monthly screening of animated shorts is cancelled for 2020.

We will hopefully resume FxF once the pandemic passes and it is declared safe to gather once more.

Accra Animation Film Festival [moved online]

Accra Animation Film Festival (July 31 – August 7, Ghana), Ghana’s most recent animation festival will take place online due to the coronavirus pandemic. The call for submissions was extended till the end of May, allowing animators who may have been delayed enough time to send their films in for the festival. In the meantime, the festival holds virtual masterclasses with leading professionals like Roye Okupe, Joshua Leonard, Alex Woo and Nurudin Momudu on its Instagram and Facebook pages.

Annecy 2020 [moved online]

Annecy Festival (June 15–20, France), the world’s largest international animation festival is moving online. However, the planned Annecy tribute to African animation as well as the 60th-anniversary celebrations will be moved to 2021, June 14-19.

The Annecy Festival is carefully monitoring the developments and the latest guidelines provided by the local, national and international authorities regarding the coronavirus. As of today, it is still premature to express assumptions on an event scheduled in three and a half months.

In due course, and depending on the occurrences, the Annecy Festival will naturally take all the necessary measures, aiming at ensuring the protection of all attendees and preserving their health during the event, under the responsibility of public authorities.

LIFANIMA [postponed]

LIFANIMA (June 4 – 6, 2020, Nigeria) has been postponed to October 8, 2020. LIFANIMA put out a statement on their Instagram:

LIFANIMA was scheduled to hold between the 4th and 6th of June in Lagos but due to the COVID019 global pandemic, it has been postponed to a later date in October. LIFANIMA has the objectives to promote the rapid development of the animation industry in Nigerian and across Africa; to improve the movie industry through increased inclusion of animation content, to provide a platform for the promotion of local animators to the latest technologies in animation hardware and software. The animation festival was founded by Muyiwa Kayode in 2017 to promote the animation genre and support its practitioners in the continent.

Fan Con [cancelled]

Fancon (4 – 5 July, South Africa), released a short statement on social media:

It is with deep regret that we announce the cancellation of FanCon 2020. While we had suspended planning since mid-March due to the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic, we had still hoped to pull off the event on its original dates of 4-5 July, or alternatively postpone it to later in the year. It is now obvious that this pandemic and its devastating effects, both in SA and the rest of the world, will not be cleared up over the next few months.

As such, we have come to the difficult decision to cancel the event for 2020, and rather look ahead to planning an awesome FanCon 2021. New dates will only be announced when all indications are that the Coronavirus situation is behind us. We will miss everyone that makes the event so special this year, but we look forward to the return of an amazing FanCon in 2021!

Abuja Comic Con [no update]

Abuja Comic Convention (24 July, Nigeria), has not announced any changes to their event.

dEX Artmosphere [no update]

The fourth edition of dEX Artmosphere (8 August, Ghana) has not announced any updates concerning the graphic design and creativity meetup in Accra.

Otamatsuri Anime & Manga Convention [no update]

The Otamatsuri Anime & Manga Convention (9 August, Kenya), hasn’t said anything on the status of the event. Given that it’s in August, an update is expected to be made soon.

Ibadan Comic Con [no update]

Ibadan Comic Con (28 – 29 August, Nigeria), the biggest geek event in the hinterlands of Southwestern Nigeria hasn’t put out any statement regarding the event.

Comic Con Africa [no update]

Africa’s newest and largest geek convention, Comic Con Africa (24 – 27 September, South Africa) has not announced plans to postpone or cancel this year’s event. If the pandemic continues and lockdown measures aren’t lifted, we can expect that this will either be moved online or like its sister event, Comic-Con Cape Town, postponed to next year.

Lagos Comic Con [no update]

West Africa’s largest geek convention, Lagos Comic Con (17 – 18 September, Nigeria), has not officially announced the status of this event.

Nairobi Comic Con

Nairobi Comic Con, which typically happens towards the end of August hasn’t announced the status of the con. In fact, dates for this year’s convention have not even been announced.

DigiArt Fest

DigiArt Fest (Uganda) which typically happens in December has not announced the status of this festival. Dates for the festival have also not yet been announced. DigiArt Fest is a product of Tribe Uganda, created to bring skills of creatives in animation, comics & video games together under a common objective of uplifting the industry of digital art.T

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[Cover image via DigiArt Fest (Uganda) 2019.]

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