With last week’s news about Wizard ditching October’s Central Canada Comic Con (a show that will continue under the guidance of the old owners), it seems that there are further changes afoot.

An eagle-eyed fan pointed out to us that according to the Wizard website, the dates for next year’s Wizard Toronto Comic Con have been revised. Originally announced for March 23-25, the former 3-day show has apparently dropped Friday from the schedule and will now be a two-day Saturday/Sunday event.

Other shows on their now reduced to 11-city world tour seem similarly changed. Only Austin (Nov. 2011) and Philadelphia (June 2012) remain as 3-day events. The Chicago event remains 4 days (mid-Aug. 2011) for now.

The benefit of a shortened schedule is that they can concentrate on maintaining their strong Saturday attendance, and the exhibitor rates should drop accordingly and hopefully help them fill the space. Reports from 2010 and 2011 events both indicated that Friday was slow and will not be missed.

UPDATE 1 (September): No real change for exhibitor rates – $800 for a table, $950 for a corner. Some kind of cheap table option if the exhibitor doesn’t sell anything for more than $20 and doesn’t advertize at the event. Turns out that the March 24-25 date at the DEC was another lie.

UPDATE 2 (October): In an interesting move, Wizard has decided to move their event to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in Mid-April. As the MTCC is the home of Fan Expo Canada and it’s Toronto ComiCon and Toronto AnimeCon events, this is an unusual move, and has some wondering how Fan Expo will respond. It is also interesting as it now brings the Wizard Toronto show into another schedule clash with Reed Pop’s C2E2 (scheduled for April 13-15).