Organizers would strive to hold this year’s Taipei International Comics and Animation Festival as planned, the Chinese Animation & Comic Publishers Association said on Tuesday.
The festival is scheduled for Thursday next week to Feb. 8.
If it goes ahead, people would be barred from lining up to enter the venue the night before the doors open, while a maximum of 9,000 people would be allowed inside at a time, the association said, citing the possibility that a COVID-19 cluster infection centered on Taoyuan General Hospital would prompt authorities to cancel public events.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
People would be asked to wear goggles, the association said, adding that it would have personnel on patrols to warn against eating and drinking on the premises.
Association secretary-general Kao Shih-chuang (高世樁) said that it has not received an official notice from the government regarding the virus situation.
Precautionary measures such as masks, temperature taking and requiring identification, as well registering visitor information, such as time of entry, would be enforced, Kao said.
People would be asked to maintain a one-person gap between those in lines, while there would be strict crowd control measures enforced at each booth, he said.
Organizer Kuei Jung Exhibition Co said that it expects the same number of companies to participate in the festival this year as last year, although there would likely be fewer visitors due to the COVID-19 situation.
Comic festivals usually draw high-school students, Kuei Jung Exhibition said, adding that it would allow online registration this year.
The festival is often where firms promote limited-edition merchandise, and invite renowned illustrators and comic artists to speak or sign autographs, the company said.
However, due to the pandemic, such merchandise might be sold online this year, while autograph sessions might be canceled, it said.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
RSS