The Evo 2021 Showcase, an in-person show that was going to show off some of the best FGC fighters in the world, has been cancelled due to concerns regarding the rapidly spreading Delta Variant of COVID-19.

"The goal of the Evo showcase is to bring together the best players from around the world in a live, in-person format," Evo explained on Twitter. "Due to the continuing complications of COVID-19 and the spread of the Delta Variant, we have made the tough decision to cancel the Evo 2021 Showcase. . . We're incredibly saddened to cancel the event."

The Evo 2021 Showcase was originally scheduled to take place at the UFC Apex sports complex in Las Vegas, NV on Nov. 27 and 28. The $125,000 tournament was slated to host games with 40+ professional FGC players from across a variety of titles such as Mortal Kombat 11, Tekken 8, and Street Fighter V.

In-person events have been an ongoing challenge across the esports industry.

While in-person events offer many benefits for competitors, since they eliminate the impact of ping and other technical issues from the competition, with the spread of COVID-19 in-person events have become complicated to arrange for tournament organizers due to the uncertainty introduced by the pandemic. Not only is managing an in-person event safely challenging during a pandemic, but even getting teams to the events can be challenging as well, as shown by Bren Esports not being able to compete in VCT Berlin and the VCS League circuit having to skip 2021 Worlds.

The next EVO event is scheduled to take place in-person during Aug. of next year in Las Vegas. With that event so far away, however, it is hard to say if it will end up actually taking place in-person, or if they will be forced to move it online as they did for EVO 2021 this year.