Platinum Studios (PDOS)

[Raggedy Man]

OT: Wizard World cancels two shows — UPDATED

Newsarama reports what we’ve been hearing all morning: Wizard World is canceling their Los Angeles and Dallas shows.

WizardWorld LA was scheduled for March 13-15 at the Los Angeles Convention Center; and Dallas for November 6-8. Newsarama confirmed the information about the L.A. show early Friday afernoon when a spokesperson for the L.A. Convention Center said that they that had been notified via voicemail on Friday morning that Wizard was canceling its show. Other sources have confirmed for Newsarama that the Texas show has been cancelled as well.

The move will halve Wizard’s convention schedule, leaving only Philadelphia on June 19-21 and Chicago, on August 6-9.

Wizard’s Dallas show is said to have lost money last year, and the LA show remained problematic for years due to lowered local attendance, sometimes due to factors outside Wizard’s control such as Marathon scheduling and so on. However, the 2009 show has already advertised guests and a number of tickets and booths had already been sold.

The move leaves Wizard with two shows: Wizard World Chicago and Wizard World Philadelphia.

The cancellations are the first real signs of effects of the softening economy on comics, although we’ve been hearing bits and pieces of layoffs and lessened hours at a few other places.



UPDATE: Wizard has released an official statement indicating that WWLA is only postponed, but no new date was revealed.

Wizard Entertainment announced today that it has postponed its 2009 Wizard World Los Angeles show slated for March 13-15 and cancelled the Wizard World Texas show November 6-8 due to the current economic climate.

The successful Philadelphia and Chicago shows will go on as planned. Wizard World Philadelphia, featuring Guest of Honor Garth Ennis, is June 19-21 at the Philadelphia Convention Center and Wizard World Chicago, featuring comic legend George Perez, is August 6-9 at the Rosemont Convention Center.

For tickets and more information about Wizard World Philadelphia and Chicago, be sure to visit www.wizarduniverse.com.

This entry was posted on 01/9/09 at 3:16 pm and is filed under Conventions, Business News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2009/01/09/wizard-world-cancels-two/