After more than a decade of bringing Doctors, companions and hundreds of Whovians to Long Island, L.I. Who will take a hiatus after this year’s convention, squeezed by rising costs, slow ticket sales, international fans increasingly reluctant to travel to the United States and uncertainty surrounding the future of Doctor Who itself.
Like a Weeping Angel, the news is bittersweet, a little scary and enough to make Whovians afraid to blink.
The fan-run convention returns to the Holiday Inn Long Island in Holtsville from Aug. 14 through 16. After that, there are no plans for a full L.I. Who convention in 2027. Organizer and showrunner Ken Deep is deliberately calling it a break, leaving the TARDIS door open for a possible return someday. For now, Deep said the math simply doesn’t work.
“The economics of the conventions are the number one thing,” Deep told SciFiSland.com. “It always has been and always will be a fan-run con.”
Deep said advance sales for the 2026 convention have been the slowest in L.I. Who’s history. To finish this year in the black, he said, the convention would essentially need to sell out and benefit from a much larger walk-up crowd than he currently expects.
“I’m headed for a very tough year,” Deep said.
That is a striking turnaround for a convention that looked ready to grow just two years ago. The first L.I. Who was held in 2013 after Deep saw a void in New York-area programming during Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary. It sold out.
“There were scalpers outside selling tickets,” Deep told SciFiSland in 2024. “That’s when I knew it was a hit.”
In 2024, the convention drew 540 attendees over three days, its best turnout since moving to the Holiday Inn. Deep was already meeting with hotel management about expanding the event and planning new programming and offerings for the following year. Two years later, the convention business looks very different.
Convention economics are getting tougher
Deep said conversations with other convention organizers have shown him that L.I. Who is hardly alone. Attendance is down at shows around the country, he said, while the cost of flying in actors and other guests has climbed. There are signs of similar pressure elsewhere in the convention world.
London Film and Comic Con, a major genre event that regularly brings in actors from the United States, postponed its entire 2026 event until August 2027. Organizers specifically pointed to sharply rising airline costs, uncertainty over flight availability, the rising cost of living and broader global issues as reasons it was no longer feasible to produce the kind of convention attendees expected.
For L.I. Who, however, Deep said another issue has become impossible to ignore: some fans simply don’t want to come to America right now.
Some international fans are voting with their wallets
Deep pointed specifically to Canadian fans, who have traditionally crossed the border to attend L.I. Who. In past years, he said, the convention could expect roughly 20 attendees from Canada. This year, he said, there is one. Deep attributes much of that drop to the political climate in the United States and tensions between the two countries.
“People are voting with their wallets,” Deep said. “That’s just the facts on the ground.”
His observation comes amid a much broader pullback in Canadian travel to the United States.
Statistics Canada reported in July that Canadian travel patterns shifted sharply following the change in U.S. administration in early 2025 and the implementation of “America First” policies. Canadians made 7.1 million fewer visits to the United States in 2025 than they did the previous year, while domestic and overseas travel increased. Leisure travel to the United States fell by more than 21 percent.
A 2026 YouGov survey commissioned by Flight Centre Canada similarly found 62 percent of Canadians said they were less likely to visit the United States this year, with respondents citing the political and cultural climate along with border concerns and travel costs. For a small, fan-run convention where a few dozen attendees can make a meaningful difference, Deep said those lost travelers matter.
And then there’s Doctor Who itself.
Doctor Who entering the wilderness
L.I. Who’s financial problems arrive at a particularly awkward moment for a convention built entirely around one television franchise. Nobody currently knows when the next regular television series of Doctor Who will arrive, who will produce it or who will be flying the TARDIS when it does. Deep is particularly frustrated with how fans got here, and he did not mince words about departing showrunner Russell T Davies.
“Russell T. Davies did us no favors when he lied about the Christmas special,” Deep said.
In October 2025, the BBC formally announced that Doctor Who would return at Christmas 2026 with a special written by Davies. The announcement followed Disney+ ending its partnership on future seasons, but the BBC said it remained “fully committed” to the series and promised further plans for its future. Then, on June 10, that plan vanished.
The BBC announced that it, Davies and production company Bad Wolf had jointly decided to cancel the Christmas special. Davies also departed the series, Bad Wolf exited as producer and the BBC announced that Doctor Who would be put out to competitive tender as it sought a production company for the next incarnation of the show.
Davies subsequently said that no script had been written and explained that the special had originally been conceived as a way to guarantee some Doctor Who while the franchise’s longer-term future remained uncertain. Once the BBC decided to pursue a larger new production, he said, the one-off was no longer necessary. Deep believes the whole episode hurt enthusiasm at exactly the wrong time for a convention trying to sell tickets. It also leaves Doctor Who fans staring into a very familiar void.
“If we don’t have an announcement about a new production company by the end of 2026, then we’re in for a few years,” Deep said.
In Doctor Who fandom, there is already a name for that. The “wilderness years” generally refers to the long period after the classic television series ended in 1989, when Doctor Who largely disappeared from television apart from the 1996 TV movie before Davies successfully revived the series in 2005. Now fans are wondering whether the Doctor is heading into the wilderness again.
A convention about the wilderness enters one of its own
The timing has produced a perfect bit of Doctor Who symmetry. L.I. Who already planned to spend part of this year discussing what happens to fandom when Doctor Who disappears from television.
Saturday’s schedule includes a panel called “Into The Wilderness – 1990 & 2026: Compare and Contrast,” examining similarities between the end of the original television era and the current situation.
Another, “Out to Pasture or Off to the Races?”, will discuss the canceled Christmas special, the BBC tender and whether fans should expect another long gap.
Later that day comes “Fans Wandering through the Wilderness,” asking what fans and Doctor Who creators do during the dead air and how the show should eventually return.
Those discussions suddenly have a second meaning. The convention holding panels about how Doctor Who fandom survives a hiatus is now preparing for a hiatus of its own. Deep isn’t entirely convinced either break is a bad thing.
“I think the rest is good for a franchise,” he said of Doctor Who. “You have to miss it.”
He points to Davies’ original 2005 revival as an example of what can happen when a franchise returns after audiences have had enough time to genuinely want it again. For Deep, the formula for another revival doesn’t need to be complicated. Cast someone dynamic. Tell good stories. Everything else, he said, is secondary.
One more trip through Doctor Who in America
But before L.I. Who disappears (temprarily, at least), Deep still has a convention to run.
Much of this year’s programming had already been conceived as a celebration of Doctor Who’s history in America, particularly the role PBS stations played in introducing generations of American fans to the series during the 1980s.
That includes an interview with Eric Luskin, who hosted Doctor Who documentaries and specials for New Jersey Network; a two-hour program about the Doctor Who USA exhibition tour of 1986 and 1987; and a panel devoted to researching the history of Doctor Who in America. The theme also happens to land during the United States’ 250th anniversary.
After the hiatus announcement, Deep said fans began sending messages, sharing memories and, in some cases, deciding to attend this year after all. It has made the organizers a little nostalgic too.
“There are a few things we’re going to do to revisit programming,” Deep said. “You plan something and you watch people’s reaction to it on the website. That always makes me feel good.”
For Deep, the emotions surrounding the break are mixed.
“Of course I’m going to miss it,” he said.
There is also some relief. After more than 40 years in Doctor Who fandom, Deep has no intention of disappearing with the convention. He expects to remain involved with Doctor Who screenings and the wider fan community, and he can imagine smaller events taking L.I. Who’s place from time to time.
If a Doctor Who actor happens to be traveling through New York, perhaps there could be a pub meetup. Maybe a one-day gathering on Long Island or in New York City. He has worked on Doctor Who books and says people have already asked whether he has another one in him. Deep also expects to spend more time helping other convention organizers, including Trek Long Island.
“I think I will take an increased role of helping out,” said Deep, who is also a Star Trek fan. “Now I can be more dedicated.”
There is something appealing about working someone else’s convention, he added. Instead of carrying responsibility for every guest, ticket, hotel room, flight and expense, he can concentrate on the part of the job he is there to do. And after more than a decade running L.I. Who, a break doesn’t sound entirely unwelcome. His feelings about the convention and the television series it celebrates have become oddly similar. He will miss them but maybe that is the point.
“You have to miss them,” he said.
