The San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) has been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. It is the first time SDCC has been cancelled in its 50-year history.

The event, scheduled to happen from July 23 to 26, was expected to attract more than 130,000 people to southern California.

Organisers announced Friday "with deep regret that there will be no Comic-Con in 2020." They "had hoped to delay this decision in anticipation that COVID-19 concerns might lessen by summer," but warnings including Newsom's comments "made it clear that it would not be safe to move forward with plans for this year."

Fans who had already purchased tickets for the four-day extravaganza will be offered refunds, or the option of attending in 2021.

Comic-Con began life as a small gathering of around 100 comic book fans in a San Diego hotel basement in 1970. But it has sprawled into a giant launchpad for mainstream Hollywood films and television shows attended by movie stars, studio heads and the world's press.

In scrapping its 2020 edition, Comic-Con follows other major US events such as the Coachella music festival, Las Vegas Cinema-Con summit, and SXSW media and technology festival in Texas.

"The prospect of mass gatherings is negligible, at best, until we get to herd immunity, and we get to a vaccine," Newsom warned at a press conference Tuesday. "When you suggest June, July, August, it is unlikely.