Wizard World Comes to Their Senses, Cancels Cruise Con

Earlier this year, convention juggernaut Wizard World announced that they were going to start a convention on a cruise ship. Scheduled for December 2nd-5th, they were planning to put a full convention on the cruise ship The Norwegian Sky.

Since the initial announcement, the guest line up changed repeatedly (I don’t think anyone was super surprised when Norman Reedus cancelled), but it seemed to be chugging along. The fact that it cost $749 to attend the event though was a major deterrent for a lot of people. Probably too many people.

You see, the Wizard World Cruise is dead in the water.

This week Wizard World quietly announced the convention cancellation on the Cruise’s official website, citing issues with guests schedules as the primary reason. It’s a reason I don’t really buy, mind you, as the event had handled earlier guest cancellations without issue. New guests would have been fairly easy to book for the event.

Frankly (and this is just speculation) this probably has more to do with Wizard World’s ongoing financial issues which led to the resignation of John Macaluso as Wizard World CEO earlier this year. The cruise was a ridiculously expensive proposition, and I’m sure most people balked at the price tag. While geek cruises, like the JoCo Cruise, can work, trying to put an entire Wizard World style convention on a ship was a pretty terrible idea.

Cancelling it is the first real hope I’ve had that Wizard World may finally be making smart financial decisions again.

Via FanCons.com