Reed Pop’s New York Comic-Con (NYCC) is taking place this weekend. Rich Johnston of Bleeding Cool published a story about a vendor that had to be removed from the event for refusing to adhere to city and event rules on wearing masks.
Rich’s article included a tweet from comic book artist Andy Price about the expulsion:
So, yeah, it’s true- a large vendor at New York Comic-Con was kicked out today, for refusing to wear masks. Not only was it a mandate of the convention, it’s mandated by the city. I feel ZERO pity for them. Get out.
— Andy Price PATREON OPEN see pinned tweet (@AndyPriceArt) October 8, 2021
Neither Rich’s story or Andy’s tweet mentioned who the vendor was by name. I did some looking and learned it was Invasion Toys, an online vinyl figures toy designer and retailer. They addressed the incident on Facebook with text images.
From Invasion Toys’ Facebook page:
Invasion Toys didn’t behave badly at NYCC. It’s the vendor they chose to share their booth with that refused to follow city and convention rules. Who was this unnamed vendor Invasion Toys chose to partner with at NYCC? They aren’t saying.
Didn’t Invasion Toys notice their unnamed partners were not wearing masks? That seems strange considering they should have known they could get their booth closed down for failing to follow the rules on mask use. I know if I had a booth at NYCC and partnered with another vendor, I’d make sure this other vendor wasn’t doing anything that could adversely effect me or my business.
This makes no sense. Why wouldn’t it be a permanent ban? A vendor refuses to follow the rules. Failure to follow the rules could result New York officials to come down hard on Reed Pop with fines and forfeiture of the permits required to hold the event. Why would any vendor refusing to adhere to these rules be welcomed back to future events?
I highly doubt something like this would be decided so soon and by the representatives seeing to it that Invasion Toys leaves NYCC.
Whoever made these infographics maxed out the number of words that could be used on a single 760 pixel by 960 pixel image. I find it odd that Invasion Toys was able to notice “many other booths” were not adhering to the mask requirement, but seemingly never noticed their own partners weren’t wearing masks either.
What a strange thing to say.
The only way there are multiple sides to a story is when multiple sides are lying.
New York City is taking the pandemic very seriously. I don’t understand why anyone would attend NYCC and not take any of the Covid related rules seriously. Not only does the city require people to wear masks while indoors at public settings, everyone has to have at least one dose of the Covid vaccine.
People know this before attending any event in New York City.
Attendance has been way down at events similar to NYCC. Most people are taking risks into consideration before deciding to attend these type of events. NYCC, because of the vaccine requirement, is the safest event you can go to. People who don’t value Covid safety or don’t believe in the pandemic probably aren’t attending NYCC.
Everyone at the Invasion Toys booth should have known this. Operating their booth with their faces exposed like it was 2018 had to turn off a lot of potential customers. By not adhering to the agreed upon safety requirements, they were driving off potential sales. NYCC probably did them a favor by giving them the boot. Now they can focus on attending events in South Dakota, Arkansas, or simular places that don’t believe in Covid.