   RingCon 2007 Report & Pics
Take a look at Ringer Spy Eowyn’s images from the same Con. Comments Off King Elendil & The Sport of Kings Ataahua writes: Here is something a little different: A horse owned by Peter McKenzie (King Elendil in FOTR) will start in the Melbourne Cup after it won at Flemington, Australia, on Saturday. Comments Off Happy Birthday Bruce Spence! Comments Off LOTR star’s life saved by surgeryLaurelin wrote in with this story detailing how Aragorn’s 22-year-old close companion and friend was saved by a surgery. Read all the details right here. Comments Off Lord of the HorsesHaldirriel writes: My friends and I just returned from touring the north island of New Zealand. Whilst there, we were informed that Jane Abbott has some of the horses from the movie and offers tours. We were able to pet and take pictures of Asfaloth, Brego, Hasufel, Gandalph’s cart pony and 2 Ringwraith horses. Jane showed us pictures from filming and told stories. She welcomes tours and for more info you can go to the website moviehorsesnz.com. Our thanks to Jane & Karen for a wonderful and informative afternoon!! Comments Off Live Chat with Thomas RobinsTobias writes: Live chat with Thomas Robins (Deagol)! In cooperation with the FedCon on Wednesday the 25th. We ask you to post a short news on your Webseite. You can find more information on this webpage. [More] Comments Off For Sale: ShadowfaxSeems one of the horses that played Shadowfax is for sale, anyone interested? From the website: This horse is Blanco – the genuine Shadowfax double in the movie Lord of the Rings. He is a Liberty trained trick horse trained by world renowned horse trainer Don Reynolds. He has been used in Hercules TV series filmed in NZ 2004. Credited trainer Wayne McCormack worked on these two films with Blanco. Blanco also worked on commercials and has done live shows. Due to overseas work commitments….a regretful sale of this great horse. [More] Comments Off Serkis, Baker, Rangi & Rhys-Davies at Collectormania G-MexCOLLECTORMANIA G-MEX PRESS RELEASE This February Manchester will play host to the largest collectors event in the North of England, and to launch the show with a real bang we will be giving you the chance to meet the stars of the greatest tv shows such as Star Trek, Lost and Stargate SG-1, and this Winter’s biggest blockbuster movies, King Kong, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe! The first ever Showmasters mega-event in the heart of Manchester will be bringing together over 400 stalls of movie and sci-fi merchandise from around the world as well as autograph sessions and free exclusive talks with the stars of blockbuster films and cult tv, plus promotions and displays, and much more! Guest stars will be travelling from as far away as New Zealand and America to see the fans over the weekend, so if you’ve ever wanted to meet the actors “in the flesh”, listen to fascinating behind the scenes stories, and collect genuine autographs in person, this will be the perfect opportunity! There are nearly 30 stars already confirmed to appear including Andy Serkis, the man who brought Gollum to life in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and who has now taken on the mammoth role of Kong in the latest King Kong movie; Stanislav Ianevski and Robert Pattinson aka Viktor Krum and Cedric Diggory, two of the tri-wizard champions competing against Harry Potter in the latest movie Goblet of Fire; Avery Brooks who played Captain Sisko in the ever popular Star trek Deep Space Nine; Michael Shanks and Chris Judge, two of the key team members of Stargate SG-1; Ian Somerhalder best known as the intense brother Boone in Lost; plus a plethora of heroes and villains from your favourite movies and tv shows! Check out the website for the very latest announcements and complete information on the guests. And for those of you looking for something unusual to spend the last of your Christmas money on (or to start on next year’s round of gift buying!) there will be a massive dealers hall with specialist companies from the USA and Europe and plenty of stalls of collectables and merchandise to peruse, everything from Anime to Xena and plenty in between! As well as classic collectables and the latest crazes, toys, comics, cards, movies and models, there will also be more unusual merchandise such as original cinema posters, replica swords and jewellery from the movies, and even original film props and costumes! And let’s not forget the displays and promotions from film companies, exclusive competitions, and give-aways running throughout the weekend. So there is bound to be something to keep the big kid in all of us happy! Collectormania G-Mex is running from 11th to 12th February 2006 at the G-Mex Central Hall in the heart of Manchester, and standard admission starts from just £5 adults, £3 children. So if you want to chase away those Winter blues with a great weekend of entertainment then why not come along to a show that’s a real event! EVENT DETAILS: http://www.collectormaniagmex.co.uk Infoline: 01908 671138 CONFIRMED GUESTS: Check out collectormaniagmex.co.uk for all the latest updates and information on all the guests and show. Comments Off Happy Birthday Brian Sergent! Today is Brian Sergent’s (Ted Sandyman) birthday! Brian was born on December 29th, 1959. That makes him 45 years old today, Happy Birthday Brian! Comments Off Detailed Fellowship Festival ReportsMarysia writes: I just spent three days at the Fellowship Festival in Alexandra Palace. The Fellowship Festival is the first UK based attempt to run a more typical genre convention rather than a marketplace event for Lord of the Rings movie fans. It will be followed by similar (though “unofficial”) events in Manchester in October (Master of the Rings – www.autographmania.co.uk) and Bristol in March 2005 (Return of the Convention – www.nadobra.com/conv) and possibly another Fellowship Festival next August. The question is, does it work? The Fellowship Festival was both a success and a failure. Originally planned for a room that could hold up to 8000 it was scaled down before the event and even then didn’t come near to filling the capacity of the hall used, with a guestimate of 600-900 people there on it’s busiest day. This doesn’t mean they failed, it just means they over-estimated their audience… 700 people is still a lot of people for this kind of event. However there was a slight element of not having fully pulled away from the marketplace event mould with seperate (and very high) charging for autographs rather than inclusion within the ticket price, and the autograph sessions being run in the noisy dealers/exhibitors room. But there was a lot they got right, bringing in the sort of elements that make conventions fun. Competitions, workshops etc. Some highlights would be… The spoof radio play written by Mark Ferguson (Gil-Galad) and performed by him, Craig Parker (Haldir), Sarah McLeod (Rosie Cotton), Cameron Hodges (Farmer Maggot) and sound effects by Bruce Hopkins (Gamling). A followup to RotK where Frodo gets bored of the Grey Havens and comes back to Middle-Earth to get back together with Sam (amid much suggestive implications), Legolas (hilariously played by Craig) and others to defeat the evil resurrected Haldir. A display recreating various fight scenes from the movies done by Lawrence Makoare (Lurtz/Witchking/Gothmog) and Jed Brophy (Snagu/Sharka/Ringwraith) with audience participation. Jed is a bundle of prat-falling energy and Lawrence has an easy drier humour, the end result was hilarious and included a recreation of the extended DVD version of the death of the Witch King with an 8 year old boy in Gimli costume and a girl dressed as Legolas assisting. Sandro Kopp (Gildor) talked through a CD full of sketches he had done while on set, some of which can be seen on his website at www.sandrokopp.com. He is an accomplished artist exhibited worldwide and gave a nice view of what it was like to be in the background of the set. For instance 1/20th of the Army of the Dead are played by Sandro in a variety of different costumes. The Tolkein Society provided a lot of extra content with hobbit dancing (assisted by Cameron Rhodes and Sarah McLeod) and talks on the languages of middle earth and costume making workshops. Bruce Hopkins performed an impromptu scene from Macbeth under the direction of Cameron Rhodes with a lady from the audience rading for MacBeth and several other audience members playing trees. John Noble (Denethor) did a particularly touching reading of the winning poetry entry at the closing ceremony. The cast members present were mostly very relaxed and seemed to have a good time, even those that didn’t do so well on the autograph front. They were often seen looking around the exhibition area or sitting in the main hall watching other talks and from what I hear all had a very enjoyable time, especially in the evenings. This kind of event can work and I think it’s a welcome break from cross genre marketplace events, but I hope future organisers look at this event and take note of where it did go wrong. Bigger isn’t always better and there are limits to the amount of money fans will pay out. Get the mix right and hopefully events like this will continue in the UK for many years to come. —– gilgalad70 I visited the Fellowship Festival late on Sunday afternoon, after completing my morning’s work and motoring like a fell beast on Pelennor Fields chased by the White One to London. Once I found the Alexandra Palace, somewhere I’d heard of, and seen from the train, but not gone to by car before, it took a while to find the main entrance (there are two entrances, one to an Ice rink, the other to the Great Court, which led to where the Festival was. We had been greatly encouraged to pre-book our tickets, and were told the ONLY place to buy your tickets for autograph sessions was online. These autograph tickets entitled you to bask in 2 minutes of Star Power, and chat with The Star, and get up to 3 items of your own inscribed as well as ‘one of his/hers’. A maximum of 300 tickets per person per day was to be sold. At the ‘Box Office’ they had no clue who was still signing, it was 4pm-ish, and nothing big was listed until the Festival Feast took place a mere 3 hours later. The signing stations in the room were deserted. Bruce Hopkins at one end of the line, and Craig Parker at the other were battling with no queues between them. In the centre of the room were a group of folks, some in full dress (Rosy Gamgee, and a few uber-fans) doing a dressed up form of country dancing to a worn out tape, a large block where you could play the LOTR-related EA Games if you so desired, and around the perimeter was a collection of various stalls that helped remind me of school jumble sales and Speech Days. Apart from John Howe and Alan Lee, signing for free, discounted copies of their assorted books (including advanced copies of Alan’s excellent revamped The Hobbit (I got 2), we had a pewter seller, a poster seller, a stall promoting New Zealand as a holiday destination, and a mini lecture theatre in the corner where lectures were being given on the intricacies of Elven weapon adornment. In the middle of the room, next to the folk dancing, was Cards Inc, UK distributor of the Topps cards, and makers of their own lines of trading cards and memorabilia. Talking to some of the guys in the room, the show had so far been a bit of a disappointment. Stars had ‘disappeared’ when they were advertised to be still signing, and look bored when the flow quickly dried up. The Festival’s PR exclaimed the Biggest companies in the World would be fighting to display their latest wares. OK EA Games are quite big, but Sideshow were notable in their absence. Besides Topps, or New Line itself, is there a bigger LOTR related Big Company out there? Across the hallway, I was able to catch the end of Karl Urban’s Q&A. He was able to disappoint many (cancelling his Collectormania appearance) and delight (suggesting his fave film was the Caine version of Get Carter , and dissing Stallone’s version (Ok so fish, barrel and shooting comes to mind but…)) someone pointed out it wasn’t him at the end of Two Towers riding beside Bernard Hill. Apparently he had to be away (attending his son’s birth) that day. He wasn’t happy about it. He felt that PJ should have digitally replaced his face on the face of the stand-in. Imagine that, digitally altering reality, in Lord of the Rings! This was followed by the School Nativity Play on Acid AKA Craig Parker and Ferguson’s ‘Radio Play’. For a family show, it was very much off limits. From what I saw and heard, it made Howard Stern look like Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and the worst sketch on Whose Line is it Anyway, look like Frasier. I think one comment I heard was, Tolkien, and PJ if he was dead, would be rolling in their graves like spinning tops.. With all the ‘blowing our own trumpet’ you could read on the website and in the mags, what you got for your 20 GBP (or more if you upgraded) really was a waste of money. Ok nice big venue, thousands of seats in the auditorium, and only just 650 tickets sold ALL Sunday.. unless you were stupid enough to buy tickets just for the feast.. If anyone thought Collectormania was bad, they had to be at Alexandra Palace this weekend. I mean, they didn’t even have blokes selling ‘ltd. ed’ film cells! Comments Off This Weekend: Fellowship Festival-Weekend!This weekend all things LOTR will gather around Alexandra Palace in London, UK for what promises to be a weekend of great fun and exciting events. If you haven’t done so already: get your tickets now! If you need some more convincing, check out the latest update from the organisers and head over to www.aaaevents.co.uk! See you there! There are only two days to go to The Fellowship Festival and while it is pretty hectic here at Festival Towers, we just wanted to give you a quick update. We have just been informed by Karl Urban’s agent that Karl has recently won a new film role which means that Karl will only be appearing at The Fellowship Festival this year so alongside Bernard Hill, Karl is now a worldwide event exclusive. We are very honoured to have both gentlemen join us at the show both have told us that they can’t wait to meet you all. The event schedule has now been finalised. Due to last minute changes the full programme will be available when you arrive. We have organised question and answer sessions with the cast and crew that are held throughout the day and are repeated every day so you won’t miss out on a thing. Some of the cast will be showcasing their special talents, check the schedule for times. Come and watch them strut their stuff; they have worked really hard to offer you a really new experience, a chance for you to see them in a new light. The Tolkien Society have worked incredibly hard to give us many workshops and seminars where you can appreciate the works of Tolkien and Peter Jackson, huge thanks go to Ian and the team for all their hard work. We are honoured to announce that Sarah McLeod will be singing “Into the West” exclusively at The Fellowship Feast. If you haven’t already got your ticket for the most memorable night of the year, you can buy it at the show from our stand. Gino Acevedo from Weta Workshop will be transforming a lucky visitor into an orc before your very eyes every single day. We can’t wait to see the results. The final touches to Mark Ferguson’s new comedy play “The Lord of The Rings 4: Return of The Towering Fellowship” have been finalised and we are looking forward to seeing Mark and some of the other cast members have us in fits of laughter. EA GAMES are bringing one of their producers to The Festival who will talk to you about how they went about making the films into a game. Essential attendance for those of you who enjoy gaming. Don’t forget that they will also be demonstrating for the very first time, their brand new LOTR games, which are not being released until November. For those of you who enjoy collecting, you can purchase exclusive items only available at the show and no-where else in the world brought to you by our friends at Cards Inc. You can also purchase official merchandise from our many exhibitors onsite. Don’t forget, every Festival Ticket holder will be entered into a prize draw to win a holiday for two to New Zealand courtesy of our friends at Red Carpet Tours. There is so much more that you can do at The Fellowship Festival, we sincerely hope that you make the most of the weekend, you enjoy all the activities that have been organised and have a wonderful time. We are very proud to be involved in such an amazing experience and look forward to seeing you all. That’s not all folks, we still have some surprises up our sleeves… Warmest wishes The Fellowship Festival Team Comments Off Paul Norell to Attend Ring*Con 2004!Paul Norell (better known as the King of the Dead from The Return of the King) is the latest addition to the lineup for Ring*Con 2004 in Bon, Germany. Norell joins, amongst others, Billy Boyd! Head over to Ring*Con.de for more information about the event! Comments Off This site is maintained and updated by fans of The Lord of the Rings, and is in no way affiliated with Tolkien Enterprises or the Tolkien Estate. We in no way claim the artwork displayed to be our own. Copyrights and trademarks for the books, films, articles, and other promotional materials are held by their respective owners and their use is allowed under the fair use clause of the Copyright Law. Design and original photography however are copyright © 1999-2011 TheOneRing.net. Binary hosting provided by Nexcess.net.
Powered by WordPress |
 
|
Elentariel writes: I just returned from another wonderful trip to Germany, where I had a chance to attend RingCon 2007. Among thousands of LOTR fans in incredible costumes, there were numerous LOTR stars, and tons of entertainment. 
