The writing was on the wall and I predicted the con wasn’t going to happen earlier today. Square-Egg Entertainment officially announced that Phoenix Fan Fest would not be happening this year. The convention always struggled to find its niche in the community and combined with the fact that Square-Egg has other conventions to focus it, it wasn’t much of a surprise. The official announcement from Facebook:
After careful consideration, we have made the very difficult decision to discontinue our fall/winter show, Phoenix Fan Fest, at this time. Phoenix Fan Fest, traditionally held in October or November, has struggled over the years to find its own identity, audience, balance of price, size, and offerings, and community support. It is not for lack of love of our fans, but in the best interest of the future of all our shows that we have decided not to host Phoenix Fan Fest 2018.
Phoenix Fan Fusion will return to the Phoenix Convention Center May 23-26, 2019. We are putting into place more improvements, plans, and ideas to make it our best show yet and we are incredibly excited for the day we can begin our announcements, including our guest line up.
Our goal is to continue working to provide the ultimate attendee experience at one of the most popular comic and pop culture conventions in the United States. We are excited to bring Minnesota Fan Fusion and Vegas Fan Fusion into our family of events and look forward to seeing you all very soon.
The announcement says “at this time” leave the door open for a return but a lot would have to happen for it to return in my opinion.
Legion of Sand 