A loosening of pandemic restrictions means a new comic and pop culture convention is finally headed to the RBC Convention Centre after having to delay plans for its debut.
Winnipeg Comiccon will present its first three-day event this fall, from Oct. 29-31, and will feature family-friendly content for fans of comic books, movies, video games, anime, and more.
Program director Cliff Caporale told 680 CJOB that organizers have been looking forward to this since the plan was first hatched to bring the convention to Winnipeg back in 2019.
“We were very excited for 2020, but … stuff happened. Everything got put on pause,” he said.
“But now it’s back on for this year, and we’re very, very excited to bring our flavour of pop culture conventions to the Winnipeg area.”
Caporale said this kind of event is nothing new to organizers — they’ve been putting on comic cons dating back to 2009 in Montreal, and have since expanded to Ottawa, Quebec City, and now Winnipeg.
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“What we try to bring to each convention is the flavour of each town,” he said.
“A lot of the things can be replicated in other cities, but there are a lot of things focused on that city. What we’re going to do is talk to the locals and slowly integrate that flavour into the Winnipeg Comiccon.”
For the uninitiated, a comic convention is a way for die-hard fans of typically solo pursuits — like movies, comics or video games — to meet up with a community of like-minded people.
“Sports fans are familiar with going to a hockey game, surrounded by thousands of fans, or they go to a sports bar. … With pop culture, it’s a little bit different,” Caporale said.
“We’re more insular, reading our comic books on the bus or watching our movies, playing video games online, and we don’t get to see each other very often. … so it’s that big celebration of getting everybody together, sharing stories, and meeting the people that we love — be it comic book guests or media guests, or just fellow fans.”
This new event fills the void left by the long-running Central Canada Comic Con (C4), which announced in September 2019 it would not be returning — due, in part, to a lack of available dates at the RBC Convention Centre that year, as well as increasing rental fees and costs.
Organizers of Winnipeg Comiccon say the event will follow all provincial health measures to keep attendees safe, and that a cap on the number of people who will be able to attend is dependent on COVID-19 regulations at that time.
Tickets that were purchased for the cancelled 2020 event will be valid this fall, and organizers are urging Winnipeggers to buy tickets online in advance to avoid getting left out in the cold if there are pandemic-related capacity requirements.
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