FILE - Ian Brackenbury Channell, known as the Wizard of New Zealand, visits Cathedral Square in 2013. (Photo by Joseph Johnson/Getty Images)CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand - The city of Christchurch, New Zealand currently employees a Wizard who gets paid by the city council to "provide acts of wizardry and other wizard-like-services as part of promotional work for the city of Christchurch," a council spokesperson said, and now he’s looking for a replacement.
Ian Brackenbury Channell, 87, a former professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, has been a regular fixture in Christchurch since the 1970s, when he first moved there from the United Kingdom.