The Twilight brand may not be as immortal as its characters
For the past two years, we’ve been trying to develop a Twilight-related business. The brand is responsible for bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars from sales of tickets, books and other merch. But we’re considering changing our get-rich-quick scheme to something Justin Bieber related after news that the Canadian TwiCon, the convention for Twi-hards (the fans of Twilight), has been cancelled.
TwiCon was originally scheduled to take place in Toronto this June, but the G20 bungled its plans and forced it to move to Ottawa. But dismal ticket sales—only 100 had registered—meant that the organizers didn’t have enough money to make a deposit on appearances by actors from “vampire-themed films and television series.” By contrast, last weekend’s ComicCon in Toronto was attended by over 20,000 and included such illustrious guests as Ernie Hudson (from Ghostbusters) and Adrianne Curry (the first winner of America’s Next Top Model). We’re guessing that the bad ticket sales were because tweens are smart enough to figure there’s no way that either Edward or Jacob would show up.
• Pop culture mania hits Toronto [CBC]
• Vampire-themed conference cancelled suddenly [Ottawa Citizen]
Natalie, don’t feel too depressed about the Toronto Comic-Con numbers — the 20,000 was a PROJECTED number the organizers tossed out to the CBC and was picked up by a number of sources. Anyone who was there reports that most of the show was SLOOOOOWWWWWW and the correct attendance for the weekend was less than 25% of the projected numbers. Google around a bit and you’ll find enough info to confirm this.