Status active Country Italy Attendance 272,000 by 2016 | Location(s) Lucca Inaugurated 1965 | |
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Organized by Comune of Lucca, through the limited company "Lucca Comics & Games Srl" | ||
Lucca Comics & Games is an annual comic book and gaming convention in Lucca, Tuscany, traditionally held at the end of October. It is the largest comics festival in Europe, and the second biggest in the world after the Comiket.
Contents
History
The Salone Internazionale del Comics ("International Congress of Comics") was launched by Rinaldo Traini and Romano Calisi (forming the International Congress of Cartoonists and Animators) in 1965 in Bordighera. In 1966 it moved to a small piazza in the center of Lucca, and grew in size and importance over the years.
Funding issues reduced the frequency of the festival to every two years, beginning in 1977. In the 1980s, the festival was moved to a sports center outside the city walls, where it remained until 1992, when it was moved to another city. (Funding issues also forced the cancellation of the 1988 festival.)
After the Salone internazionale del Comics ended in Lucca, city leaders launched a new convention called simply Lucca Comics that was a reprise of the old one. In 1996 it changed its name to Lucca Comics & Games. The festival attracted 50,000 attendees in 2002.
Meanwhile, the Salone internazionale del Comics was held in Rome from 1995 to 2005. In 2006, for the festival's 40th anniversary, the Salone merged with Lucca Comics & Games and moved back to Lucca's city center, with numerous tents and pavilions arranged in different squares within and outside the walls of the medieval city.
In 2016, the festival attracted 270,000 attendees.
Comics awards
From 1970–2005, the festival presented the Yellow Kid Award — named in honor of Richard F. Outcault's seminal comic strip character The Yellow Kid — in such categories as Best Cartoonist, Best Illustrator, Best Newcomer, Best Foreign Artist, and Lifetime Achievement. Yellow Kid Awards were also presented to publishers, both domestic and foreign.
The festival also (since 1967) presents a special award called the Gran Guinigi Award (named after Lucca's Guinigi Tower).