[3] Since their inception, the awards have been hosted at a string of comic book conventions, starting at the Chicago Comicon, and subsequently moving to the Dallas Fantasy Fair, WonderCon, the Pittsburgh Comicon, the MoCCA Festival, the Baltimore Comic-Con, and currently the New York Comic Con.

Fantagraphics established the relationship with Harvey Kurtzman, designed the ballots, and compiled a mailing list of more than 1,000 comics professionals.

[9] Frank Miller gave the keynote speech at the 2001 award ceremony, in which he vilified the comic book speculating industry, in particular Wizard magazine.

[9] In 2004 and 2005, the presentation was held at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art MoCCA Festival in New York City.

[17] Beginning on October 7, 2017, the Harvey Award ceremony was moved to the New York Comic Con.

The first year, only a small reception honoring the legacy of Harvey Kurtzman was held, and no nominations or voting took place.

In addition to announcing the winners in the individual nominated categories, seven creators were inducting into the Harvey Awards Hall of Fame including Mike Mignola and Alison Bechdel.

In regards to these additional inductees, the New York Times quoted Harvey Awards co-chair John Lind as explaining “We decided to balance the induction class with some of the past creators who may have been overlooked.”[21] In October 2020, the Harvey Awards were presented during a virtual ceremony broadcast "as part of New York Comic Con and MCM Comic Con’s Metaverse, hosted by Vivek Tiwary and featuring appearances from Gene Luen Yang, Neil Gaiman, Jill Thompson and Damon Lindelof".