The passionate group of comics-and-cosplay lovers has been without a major gathering since summer 2019, with of its planned 2020 show at the Colorado Convention Center due to the space’s use as a COVID-19 backup hospital (fortunately it’s never been needed).

Since then, there have been huge changes for the formerly nonprofit convention — in name and ownership — but fans can at last celebrate the return of the big event. Now called Denver Fan Expo, it takes place Oct. 29-31 at the Colorado Convention Center.

Single-day tickets are $45-$65 for adults; $35-$50 for kids 13-17; and $10 for kids aged 6-12, via .

“This year is a special-edition event, so some of the exciting new features will be limited,” said Andrew Moyes, vice president of Toronto-based Fan Expo HQ, which bought out Denver Pop Culture Con in March. “It����ap being presented on a little bit of a smaller scale because our big event will be in July 2022.”

This special edition event will be about 75% of its planned, 2022 showing, when it returns on Halloween weekend, Moyes said.

While producers of Denver’s former pop-culture con never struggled for impressive guests, the TV and movie celebrities this year feel bigger: William Shatner (a veteran of the event); Mary McDonnell and Edward James Olmos (“Battlestar Galactica”); Giancarlo Esposito (“The Mandalorian,” “Breaking Bad”); Michael Rooker (“The Walking Dead,” “Guardians of the Galaxy”); Ray Fisher (“Justice League”); Zachary Quinto (J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek”); Jon Lovitz (“Saturday Night Live”); Aimee Garcia (“Lucifer”); Katie Cassidy (“Arrow”) and many more.

“Are you done announcing guests?” wrote Peter Winstead on the event’s Facebook page. “Because there (are) already plenty I’m excited to meet.”

Of course, “celebrity” is defined variously in the pop-culture world, so here the term also includes authors, comics artists, voice actors and filmmakers. One of the biggest commercial aspects of the con — or “shopping madness,” as organizers dubbed it — will take over 400,000 square feet of space with vendors and exhibitors galore, while panels, seminars and workshops fill in slots outside the main attractions.

Pop Culture Classroom also will return with family-friendly events and educational programming, Moyes said, and there’s a new emphasis on cosplay this year with “red carpet” and other Instagram-friendly features.

With an average total attendance of 100,000 people over its three-day weekends, Denver’s event was attractive to Fan Expo HQ for numerous reasons, Moyes said.

“The Denver show has been a top 10 event on the circuit within the pop-culture convention universe for a number of years now, so having that legacy within the market and industry is very important,” Moyes said. “When we come into a market, we look at whether it can support our show but also other events.”

Fans would be forgiven for losing track of the event’s myriad changes. Founded in 2012 as Denver Comic Con by the nonprofit Pop Culture Classroom (then Comic Book Classroom), the event quickly became the region’s biggest gathering for fans of comic books, speculative fiction, genre films, tabletop gaming and cosplay. It also was its nonprofit producer’s biggest annual fundraiser, which also made it vulnerable to attempted buyouts from larger, commercial companies.

In 2018, producers were of the event to Denver Pop Culture Con after San Diego’s Comic-Con International brought the legal smackdown to any convention using the “comic con” moniker.

“So we are absolutely committed to comic-book culture, and we’re not backing away from that at all,” former executive director Sam Fuqua told The Denver Post at the time, claiming the name-change was already under discussion. “We just want our name to represent better all the things that happen here.”

After a successful 2019 event, Denver Pop Culture Con in January 2020 announced guests for its summer convention, but was swiftly forced to postpone and ultimately cancel last year’s showing due to the coronavirus pandemic. In March, organizers to Fan Expo HQ.

The Toronto-based company runs events across North America and bills itself as the world’s largest producer of fan-event. A month or so after acquiring the Denver convention, the company bought out a half-dozen of its rival Wizard World’s largest shows, including events in Chicago, Philadelphia and New Orleans. The for an industry that has gone mainstream over the last decade and a half.

Moyes promises the event will increasingly reflect the city’s character as it establishes itself, creating partnerships with locals and expanding programming. Until then, it’s up to fans to decide if it’s up to their standards.

“Ticket sales have been strong so far, but some people may also be holding off until the last minute,” Moyes said, declining to provide numbers (the event has about ). “This will just be an appetizer before the main course next year.”

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Denver Pop Culture Con annually draws an average of 115,000 total attendees over its three-day weekend of comics, books, celebrity appearances and more at the Colorado Convention Center.

“We had to cancel in 2020, and uncertainty around large public gatherings isn’t going away anytime soon,” said Adam Kullberg, interim executive director for Pop Culture Classroom, in a press statement. “Considering the impact that the pandemic has had on our organization and budget, it just won’t be possible in 2021 to hold the kind of show people have come to expect.”

The convention, formerly known as Denver Comic Con, (in 2019) as Denver Pop Culture Con before organizers were forced to cancel this year’s gathering due to at the Colorado Convention Center — which is owned by the city.

Pop Culture Classroom, the educational nonprofit that programs Denver Pop Culture Con, had first pushed this year’s July 3-5 convention to November before eventually canceling it on June 1, citing Denver’s retrofitting of the convention center into a temporary medical facility.

“Without the planned revenue for the event in 2020 – and now 2021 — we’ve also been forced to eliminate staff positions related to the annual event,” Kullberg said. “We are shifting our efforts and staffing to focus on our core educational mission going forward, and will be providing as many opportunities for pop culture-based education, instruction, and creative community connection as we can in the face of a challenging public health environment and serious budgetary constraints.”

A spokesman for the event said six of 11 staff positions were eliminated, all tied directly to Denver Pop Culture Con.��The event has typically had an economic impact of about $10 million, according to the  It serves as its nonprofit parent����ap largest annual fundraiser, funding 90% of Pop Culture Classroom’s work.

“Pop Culture Classroom may not survive without support from our community,” Kullberg said. “We’re asking anyone who values the work we do to donate to keep our programs going.”

Charitable donations to Pop Culture Classroom can be made at .

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Denver Pop Culture Con is being postponed until November as the city of Denver prepares to potentially turn the Colorado Convention Center, where the event is held, into a temporary medical facility to treat coronavirus patients.

Pop Culture Classroom, the educational nonprofit that produces Denver Pop Culture Con, made the decision Monday to postpone the annual event, which over a weekend of panels, celebrity autograph signings, cosplay and artist markets.

Originally scheduled for July 3-5, Denver Pop Culture Con will now tentatively take place Nov. 27-29. However, the event may be further postponed if the city exercises its option to use the 1 million-plus square feet of space at the Colorado Convention Center for continuing treatment of COVID-19 patients, Pop Culture Classroom said in a press statement Monday night.

“After consulting with the Colorado Convention Center and city of Denver, we believe this postponement is the best option for the safety and well-being of our attendees and the citizens of Denver,” said Christina Angel, convention director for Denver Pop Culture Con.

Colorado officials are hoping to begin using the Colorado Convention Center as a temporary medical facility as soon as April 18, The Denver Post reported today. As many as 2,000 beds could be housed in the now-empty space, according to internal city documents obtained by The Post.

RELATED:��Denver preparing to use Colorado Convention Center as a hospital

The city plans to use the building through the month of June but has the option to extend that if circumstances require it.

Tickets to the previously scheduled July dates will automatically be valid for the new November dates with no action required by the purchaser, Pop Culture Classroom said. Additional details will be provided soon on and the organization’s social media accounts.

People seeking immediate refunds will be given more information in the coming days, according to a spokesman for Denver Pop Culture Classroom.

Vendors, exhibitors, people who submitted panels or presentations, confirmed guests, and the dozens of volunteers who staff the event each year will be individually contacted via email.

Film and TV guests scheduled for the massive July event included cast members from NBC’s “The Office,” and actors such as Dean Cain (“Lois & Clark”), Ella Jay Basco (“Birds of Prey”), Anson Mount (“Star Trek: Discovery”), David Tennant (“Doctor Who”), Miranda Otto (Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy) and dozens more.

“We know a lot of people in our community need something to look forward to right now,” Angel said. “With your help and continued support, we’re confident we can put on an amazing event this fall — Thanksgiving Day weekend — where we can all celebrate.”

There have been no layoffs or furloughs at Pop Culture Classroom as a result of the anticipated loss of the Denver nonprofit����ap largest annual fundraising event, a spokesman for the convention said. The event has typically had an economic impact of about $10 million, according to .

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The guests, announced on , represent a sliver of the likely hundreds of artists, writers, authors, TV and film actors and other geektastic names the convention will announce before it hits the Colorado Convention Center, July 3-5.

The Disney princesses are voice actors Irene Bedard (“Pocahontas”), Paige O’Hara (Belle from “Beauty and the Beast”), Jodi Benson (Ariel from “The Little Mermaid”) and Linda Larkin (Princess Jasmine from “Aladdin”). Other celebrity guests include Michael Rosenbaum (Lex Luthor on “Smallville”) and Tom Welling (Clark Kent/Superman on “Smallville”).

Speed passes for the event, formerly known as the Denver Comic Con, are already sold out, but three-day adult tickets ($99) and single-day passes are still available. New this year: discounts for military and first responders (use the code “weremember”) and students (use the code “studentsrule”).

Skip the service fees by picking up tickets at the AXS box office at the Denver Coliseum Saturdays, 11 a.m.-3 p.m., or visit . While tickets for kids 2-12 are free and good for all three days, they must be reserved with an adult ticket purchase, according to the website.

This year’s event bills itself as “a star-spangled con” featuring “the ultimate 4th of July party,” according to the event����ap Facebook event page. That includes downtown fireworks, hot dogs, special events and “guests who play or create characters that celebrate America’s birthday (hint, hint).”

Could that “hint” be Chris Evans — who has played Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Check back here for the latest.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, In The Know, to get entertainment news sent straight to your inbox.

The guests, announced on , represent a sliver of the likely hundreds of artists, writers, authors, TV and film actors and other geektastic names the convention will announce before it hits the Colorado Convention Center, July 3-5.

The Disney princesses are voice actors Irene Bedard (“Pocahontas”), Paige O’Hara (Belle from “Beauty and the Beast”), Jodi Benson (Ariel from “The Little Mermaid”) and Linda Larkin (Princess Jasmine from “Aladdin”). Other celebrity guests include Michael Rosenbaum (Lex Luthor on “Smallville”) and Tom Welling (Clark Kent/Superman on “Smallville”).

Speed passes for the event, formerly known as the Denver Comic Con, are already sold out, but three-day adult tickets ($99) and single-day passes are still available. New this year: discounts for military and first responders (use the code “weremember”) and students (use the code “studentsrule”).

Skip the service fees by picking up tickets at the AXS box office at the Denver Coliseum Saturdays, 11 a.m.-3 p.m., or visit . Tickets for kids 2-12 are free and good for all three days, but they must be reserved with an adult ticket purchase, according to the website.

This year’s event bills itself as “a star-spangled con” featuring “the ultimate 4th of July party,” according to the event’s Facebook event page. That includes downtown fireworks, hot dogs, special events and “guests who play or create characters that celebrate America’s birthday (hint, hint).”

Could that “hint” be Chris Evans — who has played Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Check back here for the latest.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, In The Know, to get entertainment news sent straight to your inbox.

Then, as other comedians realized how easy it was to copy the format — layering live, running commentary onto Z-grade sci-fi flicks — smaller versions sprouted up around the country, including in Denver.

“I loved that it was interactive,” said Matt Vogl, who co-founded the Mile High Movie Roast show with comic Harrison Rains. “The audience came dressed in costumes, we gave away custom posters and had contests, and the instant feedback just made it exciting.”

Now, Mile High Movie Roast, Denver’s longest-running comedy show, is calling it quits after 14 years, 150 movies, five different theaters and roughly 50,000 cans of Dale’s Pale Ale (as well as “several liver transplants,” Vogl joked). The culprit?

“Shows like ours are being shut down because movie studios don’t like people talking during their movies,” he wrote in a Facebook post announcing the  (formerly Mile High Sci-Fi) on June 28 at the Oriental Theater. “We’ve been fearing this for a while, but now it has happened and we are out of options.”

While the creators of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and its digital offshoot, RiffTrax, have forged their own business models for movie-roasting, many small shows around the country are suffering the same fate as Denver’s.

“In Austin (Texas), has been doing it longer than we have,” Vogl said. “Those guys are brilliant, and their show’s going away for the same reason as ours. Doug Benson had his version of it. And there have been other shows at the (Alamo) Drafthouse that are going away. It����ap a whole genre.”

Vogl said the informal cease-and-desist notice from Colorado’s Alamo Drafthouse Cinema — where Mile High Movie Roast had previously been running — was “pretty abrupt.” He doesn’t blame them for passing along the message from various movie studios, who pushed back against the practice of mocking older, poorly received titles with a live audience. (A Denver spokeswoman for the Alamo confirmed the no-hard-feelings sentiment but did not reveal the names of the studios.)

But Vogl is still disappointed. Mile High Movie Roast is one Denver’s best-known comedy brands, having been performed everywhere from the Denver Comic Con to Red Rocks Amphitheatre, and welcomed a who’s-who of Denver comics as guest-hosts.

The combination of live performance with theatrical exhibition is a vaunted tradition stretching back to the first “Rocky Horror Picture Show” shadow-casts of the 1970s.��They were all inspired, in part, by culture-jamming, DIY programs in the nether regions of the radio dial, where radio DJs would take bong hits and talk over old films on TV. In-the-know listeners could tune in and sync the media, turning down the volume on their TVs while holding their radio speakers close, Vogl said.

It was a thrilling, subversive form of counter-programming that gave terrible rubber-monster movies new life. And it continued to work because shows like Mile High Movie Roast were able to select films whose copyrights had lapsed into the public domain, or that were cheap enough for them to afford.

That����ap become nearly impossible in the internet age, where every last event on the calendar is searchable and every lapsed, low-quality property is a revenue opportunity.

“We were showing ‘Iron Eagle’ a number of years ago and were told we couldn’t show it on DVD, only the 35 millimeter print, because the art looks better,” Vogl said, pausing at length before continuing. “It����ap ‘Iron Eagle.’ Does anybody really care?”

The inherent challenges of movie-mocking are part of its appeal, said , a Mystery Science Theater veteran who voiced the role of sarcastic robot Tom Servo. He’s now one of the principals at RiffTrax, which figured out how to monetize movie-mocking in the digital age by offering audio-only files (essentially, podcasts) that could be automatically synced to various films via the RiffTrax app.

“We’ve been doing three, sometimes four live events a year now, and it����ap been great for us because we’ll do a Kickstarter to bankroll the movies,” Murphy said of RiffTrax’s simulcasts, which appear in 650 theaters nationally thanks to (known for simulcasting concerts, opera, ballet and more).

“The upfront costs of these things are huge and we’re a tiny little company that can’t afford to lay out that cash without support,” he said. “Fortunately, we have some of the most loyal, dedicated fans in the world. They’re not wide, but they’re deep.”

The same is true for Mystery Science Theater, which has continued to live an impressive life after going off the air in 1999, following nearly 200 episodes and (somewhat ironically) a feature film. Creator Joel Hodgson crowdfunded two more seasons of the show, which have aired to acclaim on Netflix with new host Jonah Ray. Hodgson has presided over multiple national tours, comedy festival appearances and more.

“We were able to do a lot during the Kickstarter (campaign) to kind of manage people’s expectations,” , just before an MST3K tour stop at the Paramount Theatre. “In this new iteration, I got really lucky because Kickstarter kind of bought and paid for the show, which allowed us to completely make the show I wanted to make.”

Not only was MST3K’s Kickstarter campaign a success, it also set a new record as the highest-funded film and TV crowdfunding campaign in history. An initial ask of $2 million to produce three new episodes was met within a week. Less than a month later, it had ballooned into nearly $6 million in donations.

That����ap impressive by B-movie standards, but it����ap modest compared to the resources required for many Hollywood licensing deals.

“Our very first Kickstarter began because we wanted to see if we could get enough money to coax the people who made ‘Twilight’ into letting us license it into a large show,” RiffTrax’s Murphy said. ” ‘Twilight’ for me is sort of the holy grail, the perfect film for us. But I don’t think doing a big blockbuster — like ‘Anaconda’ or ‘Starship Troopers,’ as we’ve done — has ever really thrust us into a whole new realm of success. There’s a ‘quality of bad’ that a big film can’t always deliver.”

The Mile High Movie Roast model typically finds them routing 35 percent of the door revenue, as well as a fee of roughly $300, to the studio that owns the rights to the film.

“That����ap what����ap always made this difficult, since we’re not doing this full-time,” said Vogl, whose day job is as executive director of National Mental Health Innovation Center on the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora. “We could change our model to be more like RiffTrax kind of thing, but they already occupy that space.”

Even with a better model, it����ap is not an easy space to be in, Murphy said. Sensitive filmmakers and distributors often jealously guard their catalogs from movie-mockers, unaware of the new life it can give a film (see revivals of “The Room” or “Miami Connection”).

“I probably still go through 20 films before finding one that works for us,” Murphy said. “We start with a price limit as to what we can afford, and how much we think we can make, and then we look at how silly or riffable it is.��It����ap always a creative challenge because it����ap not just film commentary, it����ap a piece of comedy.”

Vogl won’t reveal the title of the final Mile High Movie Roast on June 28, but promises that he and Rains have been cleaning out their closets to find vintage, limited edition movie-roast posters (usually custom-made for one of their events) and merchandise to give away. He likens the crackdown on movie-roasting shows to the music industry in the Napster era, when labels threatened or sued individuals who illegally downloaded music online.

“Their heads are stuck in the sand because they think they can somehow make the world go in reverse,” he said. “When you look at the younger generation of movie viewers, do they ever just sit on the couch and watch a movie for two hours? No way. And studios are not listening to people who say, ‘Look, we love movies, but we want to consume them differently. We want a different relationship with them.’ “

That����ap clear in the ongoing success of the MST3K tour, which returns Colorado with shows in Durango, Denver and Colorado Springs, Feb. 13-16, 2020. As Vogl noted, movie-roasting is an organic evolution of something that people love, and it����ap not going anywhere. Why can’t we just love it the way we want to?

“The centerpieces of these shows are still their films, which aren’t getting shown anywhere else. And they’re still getting paid,” he said of the studios. “They’re just killing something that unleashes people’s creativity. It����ap really frustrating.”

Denver Pop Culture Con is being postponed until November as the city of Denver prepares to turn the Colorado Convention Center, where the event is held, into a temporary medical facility to treat coronavirus patients.

Pop Culture Classroom, the educational nonprofit that produces Denver Pop Culture Con, made the decision Monday to postpone the annual event, which over a weekend of panels, celebrity autograph signings, cosplay and artist markets.

Originally scheduled for July 3-5, Denver Pop Culture Con will now tentatively take place Nov. 27-29. However, the event may be further postponed if the city exercises its option to use the 1 million-plus square feet of space at the Colorado Convention Center for continuing treatment of COVID-19 patients, Pop Culture Classroom said in a press statement Monday night.

“After consulting with the Colorado Convention Center and city of Denver, we believe this postponement is the best option for the safety and well-being of our attendees and the citizens of Denver,” said Christina Angel, convention director for Denver Pop Culture Con.

Colorado officials are hoping to begin using the Colorado Convention Center as a temporary medical facility as soon as April 18, The Denver Post reported today. As many as 2,000 beds could be housed in the now-empty space, according to internal city documents obtained by The Post.

RELATED:��Denver preparing to use Colorado Convention Center as a hospital

The city plans to use the building through the month of June but has the option to extend that if circumstances require it.

Tickets to the previously scheduled July dates will automatically be valid for the new November dates with no action required by the purchaser, Pop Culture Classroom said. Additional details will be provided soon on and the organization’s social media accounts.

People seeking immediate refunds will be given more information in the coming days, according to a spokesman for Denver Pop Culture Classroom.

Vendors, exhibitors, people who submitted panels or presentations, confirmed guests, and the dozens of volunteers who staff the event each year will be individually contacted via email.

Film and TV guests scheduled for the massive July event included cast members from NBC’s “The Office,” and actors such as Dean Cain (“Lois & Clark”), Ella Jay Basco (“Birds of Prey”), Anson Mount (“Star Trek: Discovery”), David Tennant (“Doctor Who”), Miranda Otto (Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy) and dozens more.

“We know a lot of people in our community need something to look forward to right now,” Angel said. “With your help and continued support, we’re confident we can put on an amazing event this fall — Thanksgiving Day weekend — where we can all celebrate.”

As recently as March 16, when the convention was still full-steam ahead, producers had already canceled March workshops, classes, after-school drop-in hours and other events from Pop Culture Classroom to help reduce COVID-19 transmission risk, the nonprofit said at the time.

There have been no layoffs or furloughs at Pop Culture Classroom as a result of the anticipated loss of the Denver nonprofit’s largest annual fundraising event, a spokesman for the convention said Monday. The event has typically had an economic impact of about $10 million, according to .

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The annual convention, which drew an average of 100,000 total attendees over three days prior to the pandemic shutdowns, hopes to return in late 2021 if health and safety mandates allow, according to a post on the event’s . If not, it’s planning an April 2022 event.

Fan Expo was founded in Canada and runs conventions in Orlando, Fla., Dallas and other markets. While the company did not disclose terms of the deal, the addition of Denver strengthens its position in a market filled with volunteer-run conventions and independent events such as the , as well as major commercial shows from Wizard World, GalaxyCon and others.

None of these shows are as large as San Diego Comic-Con or New York Comic Con, , but the combined attendance with Denver allows Fan Expo to claim itself as the “largest comic con producer in North America.”

“Fan Expo Denver will be everything you’ve come to know and love from : same celebration and same awesome celebration of fandom,” wrote Adam Kulberg, interim executive director of Pop Culture Classroom, the Denver nonprofit that formerly produced the event.

Pop Culture Classroom will continue to serve as the newly renamed Denver Fan Expo’s featured charity, Kulberg said. But without the financial burden and organizational challenges of a massive convention, Pop Culture Classroom will double down on its educational programs and community outreach. The nonprofit also plans to continue running its Kids’ Lab Gaming & Teen Lounge at upcoming conventions, among other programs.

The 2020 and spring 2021 Denver Pop Culture Cons, formerly known as Denver Comic Con, due to the state using the Colorado Convention Center as a backup hospital, among other restrictions.

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