Did you know Christchurch had an official wizard?
After more than two decades as the cities official wizard of Christchurch, Ian Brackenbury Channell saw his $10,000 annual contract with the council come to an end.
He has been best known as a decades-long street performer, often perched in Cathedral Square holding a wooden staff and wearing exactly the sort of pointy hat you’d expect a wizard to wear. For decades, he attracted throngs as he pontificated on anything and everything. In recent years, his reign coincided with a surge in tourism by international fans of Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” movies, which were filmed in New Zealand starting in 1999.
For many he will be sadly missed.
