The official organizers of the renowned Seoul Drama Awards initially planned out a "no audience" event for this year's awards show. However, seeing the continuous increase of COVID-19 cases in South Korea, the organizers shifted their decision to hold the event virtually, without the audience, winners, and presenters.
Sung-Jae Park, the chairman of the Seoul International Drama Awards Organizing Committee, made known that the awards show will now take place non-face-to-face, considering the rapid rise of COVID-19 cases nationwide. Furthermore, the event will shift into a recorded broadcast from September 10 to September 15, Hellokpop reported. Chairman Sung-Jae Park also explained how they came up with making the winners, presenters, and audience not to grace the awards show.
The first event date of the upcoming 2020 Seoul International Drama Awards was set for September 10 without an audience, making the local winners and presenters appear on the said event. But with the piercing case of COVID-19 in the country, the government raise the social distancing level to 2.5.
The new line-up of SDA 2020 aims to protect the safety and health of its participants, also in light of the stricter quarantine protocol.
As a result, not only the live audience was slashed out to attend the event, but also the local presenters and winners will not be able to grace the awards ceremony. The matter led to the organizing committee to personally deliver the trophies of the winners, both local and overseas. Moreover, the winners will create a speech in the form of a video so that they could share their sentiments about their feat.
The contenders for this year's SDA 2020 was previously made known by the organizing committee, hailing the sum of 212 TV dramas from 41 different countries. The show now has 26 sets and individuals nominated for the award.
Meanwhile, the organizers will premiere the pre-recorded version of the SDA 2020 on MBC at precisely 3 P.M. on September 15.