An inevitable hazard of booking working professionals into a date-specific convention is, sometimes they have to go to work instead.
It has happened before that Northern FanCon guests had to beg the pardon of Prince George fans due to a scheduling conflict.
A new name was added to this list Wednesday when Ryan Hurst issued an apology and stepped down from this year's fan expo.
That act of personal communication was a first for the five-year-old event. All who have backed out in the past have done so with apologies, but never a videotaped message to explain in their own voice.
"Hey Northern FanCon, Ryan Hurst here," he began. "I'm so sorry. There was a problem. Not on Northern FanCon's part. But I double-booked. I'm going to be in the United States during that weekend. So sorry I can't get out to you but my team, we are all, working really hard for me to reschedule, to get out to you next year. So sorry, thanks again. Have a blast!"
Hurst was coming to the Prince George convention packing a thick dossier of high-profile screen roles.
The consummate character actor has been a significant part of films like Remember The Titans and We Were Soldiers, but also hot TV series like Bates Motel, Outsiders, he was Beta in The Walking Dead, this year he is featured in Bosch and Paradise City, and he might be known best of all as Harry 'Opie' Winston in Sons Of Anarchy.
"It was a tragedy when we lost Opie the first time, and now we've lost him again," said FanCon's Norm Coyne in mock anguish, referring to the pivotal scene when Hurst's popular character was murdered off of the Sons Of Anarchy show.
The video "speaks to the guy's class, and we are literally working on bringing him in for next year. People are disappointed about this. He's acted some beloved characters."
The process of building four previous conventions for Prince George pop-culture fans, and one that is still in the planning stages, means that another celebrity name will soon replace Hurst on the 2019 poster, and Hurst is already looking good for 2020, so Coyne is excited for the announcements to follow in the weeks ahead.
"Right now, we have five different people who we are looking at as options to replace Ryan Hurst, and we aren't even finished making the announcements we already had set for our 2019 roster, so we definitely have fun names upcoming. This just allows us to add one more we weren't expecting."
Northern FanCon happens May 3-5 at CN Centre.
