With the years-long COVID restrictions in the rearview window, Prince George is home to yet another large-scale convention, with comic book and cinema aficionados donning costumes and autograph books to take in the sights, sounds and celebrity conversations, all happening this weekend at the CN Centre. Northern FanCon, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, opens Friday and runs throughout the weekend. And no matter what your preferred comic book, movie or TV series, among the hundreds of exhibitors, dozens of celebrity guests and the opportunity to people-watch those who are costumed-up and showing off their own creativity, there’s something for everyone to enjoy.
If past Northern FanCons are any indication, it’ll be a pretty full house at the CN Centre this weekend, which is great for the city-owned and operated venue, but also for businesses throughout Prince George. Those traveling from other communities to attend often stay overnight, putting heads in beds throughout the city and when they’re not at their hotels or AirBNBs, they’re out dining at one of our many great restaurants and stopping into the mall, or checking out a movie at the cinema, something we often take for granted living in PG.
And what a nice way to start off the month of May, with another weekend of people filling up our largest venue for the umpteenth time this spring. Northern FanCon is coming on the heels of several packed houses for the CN Centre, as the Cougars are in the midst of their deepest playoff run in recent memory. Between their home games in the last month was the Northern BC Homebuilders Association Home Show and another at-capacity event last week with Ice Cube stopping in PG on his latest tour. Events that draw in folks who live hours away are vitally important to our hospitality providers and the more conventions, concerts and shows booked into our facilities, the better.
We have a very robust event calendar on our website and looking over it, it’s been great to see all the events populating it over the past few months, and looking forward into the rest of spring and summer. I had to make a hard decision last week: I could only go out one night among Thursday, Friday and Saturday – do I go see one of my favourite hip hop artists, or the number one ranked junior hockey team in Canada, both playing at a venue five minutes from my house? May I always be blessed with such difficult choices! (I ended up going to Friday’s Cougars’ game and it was a blast).
There are two truths evident that I’m sure even Star Wars and Star Trek fans can agree upon: fist, Northern FanCon is fun – there’s so much to take in and enjoy, regardless of your age or what kind of films or tv series you enjoy and second, every time our entertainment and meeting facilities are full, be it for a night, weekend or entire week, such as the Resource Forum, it’s good for all of us.
