There is something pretty special about banding together with fans in your area and fans world-wide to experience The Hobbit collectively. Following the tradition of Line Party events held a decade ago, our shirt designer Chris Lyons put together a shirt for TheOneRing.net’s fourth party experience. Modeled after a concert tour shirt while still celebrating dragons and dwarves, we want to make this one available to as many attendees as possible. Following tradition, this is our LP4 shirt, following our LP3 shirts from 2003 that we still get requests for and that some members of our staff rarely take off. (We are really hoping they will replace them with these newer, cleaner ones.) The city names on the back will be replaced with actual Line Party cities (join or start a line today!) and we would like to add a corporate sponsor as well. In fact, contact us if you would like to get your brand out  to the most die hard fans and have it worn around for a good, solid decade. Our hope is to make these shirts extra affordable and ship in time to wear to the December 13th midnight screenings across the land.

If you are familiar with Line Parties, we have a primer (Line Party 101) to give you the basic info on how to start or participate in an event near you. In 2003, with the momentum of three LOTR films, our line party organization reached well over 10,000 sign ups which usually represents only a small fraction of those actually attending. We know of people attending events in 2012 that have purchased 20 tickets but with only one sign up. We supported the most active lines with gifts or items from corporations or individuals as the opportunity arose. The largest lines, in Utah and Arizona, numbered more than 1,000 people and brought great costumes and media attention with them.

2001 was ‘The Fellowship of the Line’

2002 featured ‘2002 Towers’

and 2003 was LP3: The Return of the Line. We also declared, on a shirt and way before it was an internet meme, “One does not simply walk into theaters, there are geeks there that do not sleep.”

In fact the line party movement shares a common theme with Star Wars fandom, known for its weeks-long commitment to camping out and waiting in lines to be the first to see new installments of that franchise. Keep your eyes peeled for these to go on sale and thanks for all of your support. Join today!