There’s an opportunity to meet up with fellow geeks and gamers as Lucca Comics & Games festival announces it is happening in person from 29 October to 1 November 2021 in Italy.
“Lucca Comics & Games is a unique cross-media event dedicated to pop culture, cosplay and comics held in a medieval Tuscan town,” said Emanuele Vietina, Director of Lucca Comics & Games. “Before the pandemic, each year more than 250,000 fans walked through our city walls to immerse themselves in a world of fantasy. Our organisation has worked very close with government to implement safety rules. We are delighted to be able to open our gates again after a year of darkness.”
This year Italy is honouring poet and philospher Dante Alighieri by celebrating the 700th anniversary of his death and Dante’s Divine Comedy sets the tone for the returning festival with this year’s theme being ‘rebehold the stars: light’. Indeed, light is the synthesis of this new Lucca Comics & Games, which signals a passage from dark to light, and paves a road to a new kind of normal. Visitors will go back to meeting creators of universes that have been an integral part of the festival – comics, games, storytelling, modern mythologies and big and small industries represented in these worlds.
The theme of Light will visually accompany the Festival experience with contemporary Italian illustrator Paolo Barbieri creating the image of Lucca Comics & Games poster (above). In the year of Dante’s celebrations, he creates a link between Lucca Comics & Games to Dante’s journey with Virgil through the darkness of Hell.
The festival will be returning to the heart of Lucca, Italy in 2021, offering the public the chance to find the most beloved publishers and exhibitors in historical areas. The central core of comics will remain in Piazza Napoleone, the iconic pavilion is coming back together with Palazzo Ducale and the historical spaces of the Palazzetto dello Sport for this year. The world of gaming will be housed in the Real Collegio and in the Cavallerizza area, Japan World will conquer the large spaces of the Polo Fiere di Lucca. The music and cosplay area will be hosted in the San Francesco complex.
Suspended between theatrical performance and costume craftsmanship, the cosplay world finds its home within the Villa Bottini and will host communities including Assassin’s Creed Cosplay, Terre di Mezzo Cosplayer, Ghostbuster Italia, Avengers / X-Men and 501 Italica Rebel/Legion Empisa. There will also be space for medieval fantasy, steampunk, the post-apocalyptic world of The Walking Dead, the universe of Harry Potter and the magic of Disney. The San Francesco Auditorium will host the long-awaited Cosplay Competition on Saturday 30 October.
Lucca Comics & Games will be taking place on 29 October to 1 November 2021 in Italy. Find out more here.