The largest convention in Manitoba is coming Halloween weekend of October 28 to October 30 at the RBC Winnipeg Convention Centre. This will be the first time that Central Canada Comic Con has been hosted in the newly expanded building. William Shatner (Captain Kirk) will be the featured guest and on the Friday he will host a 50th Anniversary of Star Trek discussion at 5:30 PM.
The convention had a modest start in 1995 as River City Collector’s Expo. At that time the hotel ballroom event featured antiques, sports cards as well as collectibles. Antiques were dropped and sports cards reduced when they show was re-branded in 2000 and called Manitoba Toy & Comic Expo.
By 2006, the name was changed to Manitoba Comic Con and focused on toys, comic books, gaming, anime, and local artists. In 2007, they started to bring in TV and film genre guests and attendance started to really take off. The only facility to be able to handle the numbers for the 2008 event was the Winnipeg Convention Centre and each year progressively got bigger and better until 2010 when Wizard World purchased the convention.
For whatever reason Wizard World pulled put and the original organizers had to rush back in and salvage what they could in terms of putting on a show that was re-named Central Canada Comic Con or C4. Fortunately attendance didn’t drop for what was the smallest guest list since 2007. By 2011. the guest list of celebrities and artists was massive and the show began to really go on a tear in terms of attendance.
The last two years of the convention have been subject to the near endless construction of the RBC Winnipeg Convention Centre. Despite the complications of using a facility being renovated, attendance topped 48,000 in 2016 and the show seems destined for even more success.
In addition to William Shatner, the convention features will Tia Carrere from Relic Hunter and several others. A fair sized number of comic writers and artists are in attendance. The Cosplay artists continue to grow with Yaya Han and Meg Tulley being a few of the several coming.
The 1966 Batmobile and Optimus Prime truck will be in the gallery of genre vehicles.
Wrestling team Demolition will among the guests.
The 2016 convention will possibly be the best attended ever so people should plan their days accordingly and look online for schedules of events or people they want to see. It all starts Friday afternoon and runs through till Sunday. There are a number of after parties that attendees can also look into.
