Central Canada Comic Con on Facebook:

River City Conventions after 25 years will be closing its doors permanently. There will be no future events planned for 2020 or the future.

I wasn’t the biggest fan of the convention but I’m still sad to see it shut down. I had some great experiences there many years ago. Why they couldn’t have scaled back the event and put it on in a different place is beyond me.

While the organizers were quick to blame the venue and sponsors for their troubles in their previous update, this makes me think they’re withholding details to avoid damaging their reputation with their supporters.

GalaxyCon Minneapolis is in November and the guest list looks fantastic.

Central Canada Comic Con on Facebook:

it is with a heavy heart and great sadness that we have to announce that C4 will not be happening this year.

It has been tough running it the last few years with rental fees and costs going up, as well as the lack of local support from businesses and the City of Winnipeg. And now with the RBC Convention Center not having space on the dates we need. With all of these things put together it makes it impossible for us to organize a convention of C4’s size this October.

I’ve been attending C4 for 15 years.

I’ve waited a week or so to post my thoughts on this because I didn’t want to rush to judgement on the matter. That said, my initial opinion hasn’t changed much. Thinking back, the writing’s been on the wall for something like this to happen and I’m surprised it took this long to implode.

Years ago, C4 had a publicly visible group on Facebook that allowed the volunteers and organizers to discuss the event. Reading through, It was not uncommon to see volunteers discussing how poorly treated they were during the event only to be harassed by the organizers and their loyal supporters for speaking up. Needless to say, I can’t imagine this is how volunteers at most other events are treated.

In 2010, news broke that Wizard World had bought the convention and would be adding it to their roster of shows — even announcing guests that would be attending the newly minted Wizard World Central Canada Comic Con.

Fast forward a few months, it was announced that the deal had fallen through and the original organizers had, in their words, swooped in to save the day and would once again be running the show. We never really got a reason as to why Wizard bailed but from what I was told by people who claimed to have inside knowledge of the situation is that the original owner was inflating ticket numbers and Wizard World caught on. Is that actually the case? We’ll never know.

Everyone has a horror story about the event (here’s mine), and some have made their way into the mainstream comic media. I hope this means the existing group will eventually get their act together or someone like FanExpo will come in and deliver the world-class event the city has been waiting for.