For it to be an event, every fan convention has to have a guest of honor. The San Diego Comic-Con employs Peter Jackson, who spends his time persuading attendees that they want a 15th movie based on a J.R.R. Tolkein novel. The E3 convention brings in every Nintendo executive, who beg and plead with people to buy a WiiU. And every Doctor Who convention needs at least one Doctor.
Last year's first WhoFest broke that one rule and somehow managed to be successful. But this year should be even better because the organizers announced this week that one of the Doctors will materialize at their next convention in April of 2015.
Organizers of the annual convention announced that Colin Baker, the sixth actor to play Doctor Who, will be at the next WhoFest on Apr. 24-26.
Mike Erickson, promotions director for WhoFest, confirmed Baker's appearance at the upcoming convention.
"It's a real coup," he says. "We're really excited about it particularly because it's only our second outing and this is our first one with guests."
It's a major achievement for DFW's Doctor Who convention. After all, there are only 11 actors who played the mighty time lord on the British sci-fi series and only a few of them still make appearances at fan conventions around the world.
"Nearly all of the living, former doctors from the original series like Peter Davison, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann regularly tour around doing conventions but it's usually for some of the bigger ones than our," Erickson says. "So it's a big deal that we were able to get him here."
Erickson says they are constantly planning the convention but they will definitely have a live Q&A session and a meet and greet and autograph session with Baker for the fans in attendance. Fans can learn more about the upcoming WhoFest at a panel scheduled during FenCon starting on Friday, Sept. 26th.
"This moves us up a little bit," Erickson adds. "There will be Doctor Who actors and Doctors in some larger media convention as well as the dedicated conventions. So this will help put us up there with some of the larger Doctor Who centric conventions."