Elan Awards for video games and digital media leave Vancouver for San Diego

After three annual shows in Vancouver, the Elan Awards are packing up and moving to San Diego.

Today (December 15), Elans founder and CEO Holly Carinci and chair Justin Townsend announced that the 2010 edition of the award show for video games, animation, and visual effects will take place on July 19 at the Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego hotel.

Two days of parties will precede the award ceremony, which will land just before the 2010 Comic-Con International begins on July 22. One thousand tickets are available for the show at US$495 each.

Last April, Carinci told the Straight that she was considering moving the award show to Los Angeles.

“What I need to take the show to the next level doesn’t exist here,” Carinci said at the time. “We don’t have the infrastructure in place here at all. Every year, really it’s been important—on behalf of the industry too—that the show keeps up with them. They grow so fast. Next year has to be another big move, and I wouldn’t be able to pull it off here.”

Carinci, who admitted she doesn’t play video games, said her goal was to make the Elans “the new Oscars”.

The first Elans in 2006 recognized the achievements of the Canadian video-game and animation industries. In 2008, the second annual Elan Awards introduced four international categories.

For its April 2009 show at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver, the Elans expanded to include visual effects and made all categories international in scope. Left 4 Dead won the Video Game of the Year award.

The categories for the 2010 Elans will be announced on Thursday (December 17).

Today’s announcement of the Elans’ move comes three days after Spike TV’s seventh annual Video Game Awards were held in Los Angeles.

You can follow Stephen Hui on Twitter at twitter.com/stephenhui.