The Toronto Comics Art Festival (TCAF) 2021 event has been announced, and this year’s convention will be held virtually from May 8th through May 15th, 2021.

The news comes after a tumultuous year for TCAF, which saw co-founder Chris Butcher stepping down amid calls for greater racial diversity among the festival’s leadership in July 2020 – not to mention the difficulties posed by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which made in-person comic conventions a dangerous and untenable proposition.

For TCAF 2021, a virtual convention will be held. Those who wish to attend will be able to visit the virtual TCAF convention site at any time between May 8th and May 15th, 2021. During this time period, visitors will be able to browse a virtual marketplace, with plenty of shopping opportunities from exhibitors, and they’ll also be able to sample on-demand programming like workshops, informative lectures, and Q&As.

The online TCAF 2021 event is a partnership between TCAF, Canzine (The Festival of Zines), and Hand Eye Society.

To exhibit at TCAF, you’ll need to fill out an application form by March 3rd, 2021. Exhibitors will be given the option to apply to TCAF, Canzine, or Comics x Games. Once accepted, each exhibitor will be given a online shop page which they can customize and then upload up to five items to sell.

After the event, the product sold by exhibitors will all be sent to a warehouse, where the orders will be packaged and shipped to purchasers. According to the TCAF 2021 website, this process will help exhibitors save money on excess shipping and transaction costs, and options will be available for those who wish to include additional products. However, there will be an associated fee for the warehouse services.

One of the benefits of a virtual event is that exhibitors do not need to be in Toronto to take part! No matter where you are in the world, you can apply to be an exhibitor at TCAF 2021.

For those exhibitors who were accepted to TCAF 2020, you can either defer your acceptance to the virtual TCAF 2021 event, or you can further defer your acceptance to TCAF 2022. It is requested that those who were accepted to TCAF 2020 include this detail in their applications for TCAF 2021.

You can keep up with the latest information on TCAF 2021 by following the official Twitter account. Will you be attending the virtual event? Let The Beat know in the comments or on social media!

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