Pop Con YXE | |
---|---|
Status | Active |
Genre | Comic, pop culture |
Venue | Prairieland Park |
Location(s) | Saskatoon, Saskatchewan |
Country | Canada |
Inaugurated | 2013 |
Organized by | Prairieland Park |
Website | saskatoon |
Pop Con YXE (formerly the Saskatoon Entertainment Expo) is an annual fan convention held at Prairieland Park in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
The event was founded by Mike Fisher and Chris Bernhard of Saskatoon as the Saskatchewan Entertainment Expo, who sought to provide a local alternative to out-of-province events in locations such as Alberta. [1] The inaugural edition was held in 2013; major guests included William B. Davis, Grey DeLisle, and Kevin Conroy, as well as comic book writers Ian Boothby, Pia Guerra and Marcus To among others. [2]
To expand the event, the convention partnered with the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo in 2014, and was renamed the Saskatoon Comic and Entertainment Expo (SCEE). Notable guests that year included actor Robert Englund, Phil LaMarr, and Brandon Routh. [3] [4] William Shatner appeared at the 2015 edition; attendance had grown to around 15,000. [5] [6] Carrie Fisher attended in 2016. [7]
Fan Expo—which had begun to run their own event at Regina's Evraz Place in 2014—acquired the organizers of Calgary Expo in late-2017. As a result, the partnership was disbanded, [1] [8] and the convention reverted to the Saskatchewan Entertainment Expo title in 2018. [8] Doug Jones, Ron Perlman, Gates McFadden, Jim Cummings, John Ratzenberger, Julian Glover, Jewel Staite, Pat Mastroianni, and Stacie Mistysyn were featured as guests. [9] Billy Dee Williams was scheduled to attend, but cancelled due to conflicts with film work; this cancellation resulted in speculation [10] [11] — later confirmed [12] — that Williams would reprise the role of Lando Calrissian in the upcoming Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker . [12] [13] [11]
In October 2018, Fan Expo announced that its Regina event would be discontinued, citing the size of the market as a factor in the decision. Saskatchewan Entertainment Expo subsequently announced that it would hold an inaugural Regina edition at Evraz Place's International Trade Centre in May 2019. [14] [1]
On January 27, 2019, it was announced that the Saskatoon event had been sold to Prairieland Park, would be renamed the Saskatoon Entertainment Expo in 2021, and move to April. [15] Both the 2020 and 2021 conventions were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. [16] The event returned under its new ownership in 2022. [17]
Following the 2024 edition, it was announced that the event would be renamed Pop Con YXE beginning in 2025. [17]
LandoCalrissian is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise. He is introduced in The Empire Strikes Back (1980) as a friend of Han Solo and the administrator of Cloud City on the planet Bespin. Prior to the events of the film, Lando made a career as a gambler, con artist, playboy, mining engineer, and businessman, and was the owner of the Millennium Falcon until losing the ship to Han in a bet. In the film, when Cloud City is threatened by the Galactic Empire, Lando reluctantly betrays Han to Darth Vader, but later helps Han's friends escape from the Empire. In Return of the Jedi (1983), after becoming a general in the Rebel Alliance, Lando helps rescue Han from Jabba the Hutt and leads the attack on the second Death Star.
William December Williams Jr. is an American actor, novelist and painter. He has appeared in over 100 films and television roles over six decades. He is best known for portraying Lando Calrissian in the Star Wars franchise and has also appeared in critically acclaimed and popular titles such as Mahogany (1975), Scott Joplin (1977), and Nighthawks (1981), as Harvey Dent in Batman (1989) and The Lego Batman Movie (2017), The Last Angry Man (1959), Carter's Army, The Out-of-Towners (1969), The Final Comedown and Lady Sings the Blues, Hit! (1973), Fear City and Terror in the Aisles, Alien Intruder (1993) and The Visit (2000).
David Milgaard was a Canadian man who was wrongfully convicted for the 1969 rape and murder of nursing student Gail Miller in Saskatoon and imprisoned for 23 years. He was eventually released and exonerated. Up until his death, he lived in Alberta and was employed as a community support worker. Milgaard was also a public speaker who advocated for the wrongfully convicted and for all prisoners' rights.
CFQC-DT is a television station in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, part of the CTV Television Network. Owned and operated by network parent Bell Media, the station has studios on 1st Avenue North and 23rd Street East in the Central Business District neighbourhood of Saskatoon, and its transmitter is located near Highway 41 and Burgheim Road, northeast of the city.
Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy is a 2004 documentary film directed by Kevin Burns and narrated by Robert Clotworthy. It documents the making of the original Star Wars trilogy: Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), and Return of the Jedi (1983), and their impact on popular culture.
SaskTel Centre is an arena located in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. The facility opened in February 1988 and is currently the home venue of the Saskatoon Blades of the Western Hockey League, the Saskatchewan Rattlers of the Canadian Elite Basketball League, and the Saskatchewan Rush of the National Lacrosse League, with the arena being referred to as Co-op Field at SaskTel Centre during Rush games.
Saskatchewan Telecommunications Holding Corporation, operating as SaskTel, is a Canadian crown-owned telecommunications firm based in the province of Saskatchewan. Owned by the provincial government, it provides wireline and wireless communications services, including landline telephone, mobile networks, broadband internet, IPTV, and security services. Through a subsidiary, SaskTel International, the company has also worked on telecom infrastructure projects in countries such as Argentina and the Bahamas, as well as being the lead implementation company for the communication and control systems of the Channel Tunnel between England and France.
CBK is a Canadian public radio station licensed to Watrous, Saskatchewan. It broadcasts the CBC Radio One network as a Class A clear-channel AM station powered at 50,000 watts around the clock from a non-directional antenna near Watrous.
The New York Comic Con is an annual New York City fan convention dedicated to Western comics, graphic novels, anime, manga, video games, cosplay, toys, movies, and television. It was first held in 2006. With an attendance of 200,000 in 2022, it is North America's most attended fan convention. The New York Comic Con is a for-profit event produced and managed by ReedPop, a division of RX and Reed Elsevier, and is not affiliated with the long running non-profit San Diego Comic-Con, nor the Big Apple Convention, later known as the Big Apple Comic-Con, owned by Wizard Entertainment.
Marquis Downs was a horse racing venue in the Exhibition subdivision of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. It featured thoroughbred horse racing.
Sports in Saskatchewan consist of a wide variety of team and individual games, and include summer, winter, indoor, and outdoor games. Saskatchewan's cold winter climate has ensured the popularity of sports including its official sport, curling, as well as ice hockey, ice skating, and cross-country skiing. The province also has warm summers and popular summer sports include baseball, football, soccer, basketball, track and field, rodeo, horse-racing, and golf.
Prairieland Park is an events centre on the south-central edge of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The park is located in the Exhibition neighbourhood of Saskatoon. Each year the park hosts an annual Saskatoon Exhibition variably called "The EX". During the remainder of the year most of the park venues are rented out to special events. Some events held are the Western Canadian Crop Production Show, Glow Saskatoon, Gardenscape, and the Prairieland Junior Ag Showcase.
Fan Expo is a group of fan conventions operated by Fan Expo HQ, a unit of the Informa Connect division of Informa plc. Most of its events are run under the Fan Expo brand, which stems from its namesake, the Toronto-based Fan Expo Canada.
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L.A. Comic Con is a three-day multi-genre convention held annually in downtown Los Angeles, California. L.A. Comic Con is one of the largest independent conventions in the United States and encompasses several categories, including comic, horror, sci-fi, anime, gaming, and pop culture, with a particular focus on the local Los Angeles community.
Star Wars Detours is an unaired American animated comedy series. It is differentiated from the other Star Wars animated series in that it is a parody of the franchise. It offers a comedic take on what happened between the prequel trilogy and the original trilogy. The series was produced by Lucasfilm Animation in collaboration with Robot Chicken creators Seth Green and Matthew Senreich. Although 39 episodes of the show have been produced, their release has been on hold since 2013, following Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm.
Fan Expo Denver is a speculative fiction fan convention held annually in Denver, Colorado, in the United States. The event is a celebration of comics, books, movies, TV, gaming, and other pop culture.
Calgary Expo, known in full as the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo, is an annual fan convention held at Stampede Park in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
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