IFC at WW Chicago: When Worlds Collide

MMAWeekly.com, a mixed-martial arts news site, has images and a report from Wizard World Chicago, where Gareb Shamus’s two companies — Wizard and International Fight League — collided:

The International Fight League, initially making an impact by becoming the first organized league of mixed martial arts fight teams, accomplished another first for the sport by promoting its league at this past weekend’s Wizard World convention in Chicago.

Wizard World is a comic and pop culture convention held by Wizard Entertainment, the company of IFL president and co-founder Garub Shamus. This year’s four-day event was the 10th edition of the convention and was attended by more than 200,000 fans.

Their numbers, of course, are off … Wizard’s attendance was more in the 58,000 range. Where MMAweekly.com got their numbers is the question. As Comics Worth Reading pointed out after the con, some early reports claimed WW Chicago saw 200,000 people attend the show:

I just saw something that suggests Wizard is claiming 200,000 people attended their show over all four days. (Wizard probably follows the method of counting a three-day pass as three attendances. Or, come to think of it, four, considering Preview Night.) I sure hope I misread that, because it’s nowhere near the truth, based on what I saw Thursday and Friday and what a retailer friend told me about business the rest of the weekend.