2 -Lee-Shatner
We have no idea how the FEC counts guests, so can make no comparison of these figures to other shows. It was clearly a well attended event, however. Pictures above: great moments in nerd history.

The organizers of the 12th annual Fan Expo Canada, which took place September 1 – 3 at the Metro Toronto Convention Center, are pleased to announce that over 42 000 fans attended this pop culture event in just two and a half days. This represents a 21% increase in attendance from last year.

Featuring five shows under one massive roof including: Comic Books; SFX Science Fiction; CN Anime; Horror and Gaming, the show’s appeal was pushed to new heights. Fans on Sunday had the opportunity to meet William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy in Toronto to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Star Trek. Also on hand for the first time in Canada was Carrie Fisher, who played Princess Leia in Star Wars.



Other popular guests included Gates McFadden (Star Trek: The Next Generation); Robert Picardo (Star Trek Voyager) and Juliet Landau (Buffy The Vampire Slayer). The SFX feature also starred James Callis (Baltar of Battlestar); Morena Baccarin (Inara of Firefly); Paul McGillion(Beckett of Stargate Atlantis); Verne Troyer (Mini Me of Austin Powers and Jeffery Combs (Star Trek).

Over 200 professional comic book artists and vendors thrilled comic book fans. The comic book industry’s ‘heavy hitters’ made the trip to sign autographs and preside over panel discussions throughout the event. Names such as; Jim Lee, Brian Michael Bendis, Geoff Johns, Ethan Van Sciver, Mike Mignola, Oliver Coipel, Humberto Ramos, Tom Raney, Roman Dirge, Steve McNiven, David Finch, Terry & Rachel Dodson and many others delighted fans with their skills and wit.

The Rue Morgue Festival of Fear returned for its third year at the Expo with a fantastic line up of guests including the legendary Alice Cooper. Other horror industry notables were; Linda Blair, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Michael Berryman, Ben Chapman and Walter Phelan.

This was the ninth year the Expo has included an Anime event, and it featured some incredible talent including Yasuhiro Imagawa, visiting from Japan and voice actors from Full Metal Alchemist and Naruto. Other highlights included karaoke, masquerade, Q and A sessions, autograph signings and photo shoots. CNAnime also featured an expanded video room section at the Expo and an all night Anime Video party.

Looking forward to 2007, Hobby Star Marketing President Aman Gupta explains, “Next year we are looking to build on what we have achieved in 2006. We have a number of big ideas and endeavour to keep wowing our wonderful fans. One hint, it is the 30th Anniversary of Star Wars next year!” The dates have been confirmed for August 24-26. 2007.

1 COMMENT

  1. For once I actually believe the estimated numbers of a con. There may have been 42 000 there, but it felt like 50 000! You could barely move in the isles, the line ups to buy tickets were huge, the lineups to get into the hall were even bigger. At one point the vendor selling food outside the hall had to resort to cutting hotdogs in half and placing them on hamburger buns. It was the only food they had left. It was just really, really crowded.

  2. Yes, the con was jammed with people. I was surprised it didn’t get shut down. For large parts of Saturday there wasn’t room to raise your arm in any direction without hitting another fan. Shatner, during his special talk with fans repeatedly said there was 50,000 at the show and it was Sunday morning.