Arwen party dress by BlackMilk Clothing
Arwen party dress by BlackMilk Clothing

Some of the Middle-earth clothing from Black Milk has made a splash on our Facebook page but with fashion and popular culture taking center stage this week leading up to our own One Expected Party on Oscar night, it seemed a good time to share it here. Will we see a Doorway party dress? How about Witch King leggings? While we kind of want to chastise the company for not hyphenating and not making the e lower case in Middle-earth, its pretty cool to see a company take geek culture in mainstream directions. Its R2-D2 dress is well-known on websites like Tumblr, Twitter and Pinterest. The Australian company gets our kudos for making geek, chic. In the meantime, if you want to or plan to be in the Los Angeles area this weekend and want to join us for the party, we would love to have you, even if you aren’t wearing all the names of the dwarves on your leggings. Tickets remain and with food and entertainment like One Man LOTR and Billy Boyd’s Beekcake on the musical menu, and Hobbit Oscar nominations for visual effects, hair and makeup and production design, it will be a night of legend.

According to the little countdown on the left side of this page, we are only 10 days away from ‘The One Expected Party‘ and 8 days away from The Unexpected Art Show!’ (Yes, tickets are still available, but we are getting close to a sell out!) Today we’d like to focus on one of our Mithril sponsors for the event, Air New Zealand. AirNZ is not only the official airline of Middle-earth, but they are also officially supporting the fans of Middle-earth by providing both financial and airfare support for our event. In fact, we can thank them for flying in Billy Boyd and Beecake all the way from Scotland!

Air New Zealand

Air New ZealandAir New Zealand is the official airline of Middle-earth with a global two-movie partnership with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: There and Back Again.

As part of the two-year partnership, passengers from North America can fly on Hobbit-wrapped Boeing 777 aircraft and even enjoy a very special edition of the in-flight safety video.

Destination New Zealand is clearly established as the home of Middle-earth and Air New Zealand brings that magic to life for travelers.

Just as Sir Peter Jackson is able to transport audiences to the magical world of Middle-earth, Air New Zealand brings people to the breathtaking landscape that has been home to these epic productions.

Air New Zealand will be sending a Hobbit-themed crew to help escort our VIPs throughout ‘The One Expected Party,’ and will also be displaying a scale model of the Hobbit-wrapped 777. They are also generously contributing four unique ‘Hobbit’ packs for our giveaway – packs that are not for sale and only available through events like ‘The One Expected Party.’

We hope you can join us and our friends from Air New Zealand for a magical night in Hollywood! Purchase your tickets today!

[Purchase Tickets] [Art Show Tickets] [The Noble Collection]

 

 

 

We’re only a week away from ‘An Unexpected Art Show’, a unique celebration of artwork from over 30 artists around the world inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth. Our event is one night only – Friday, February 22, from 7 PM to 1 AM. ‘An Unexpected Art Show’ will be at Lot 613, a blank-canvas special events space in the Historic Arts District of downtown Los Angeles, located at 613 Imperial Street.

An Unexpected Art Show

All ages are welcome to attend. Children 12 and under get in free. There is plenty of free street parking and an adjacent lot offers parking for $10. A limited number of tickets are available for $15 online and $20 at the door. Print and bring the above flyer for a $10 discount. There will be food and drinks for sale as well as a DJ set later in the evening.

Among the over 30 artists contributing work and attending in person are Tim Kirk, who illustrated the 1975 Tolkien Calendar — the first by an illustrator other than Professor Tolkien, and Jerry VanderStelt, an artist producing licensed reproductions for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings films. Additional artists include Donato Giancola, Stephen Hickman, and Jay Johnstone. Purchase tickets today!

It’s all part of our Middle-earth Celebration weekend culminating with ‘The One Expected Party‘ on February 24th. Party tickets are still available!

1hobbitteaseToy Fair 2013 is going on right now in New York, and those who were not buried under feet of snow have gotten a chance to see just what The Bridge Direct has cooked up for us with wave 2. The second wave of figures for The Hobbit will consist of the rest of the company of Thorin Oakenshield in 3.75″ scale, Radagast the Brown in both 6″ and 3.75, Azog in both scales and – it appears – with both versions of his left arm, Bolg in 6″, and Yazneg in 6″ – which figure was previously released in the UK. There also will be a new version of Sting for sure this time, coming with scabbard, and a full blue version of Sting, both of which will go with the version from wave 1. This wave will also have plenty of two packs of the dwarves in 3.75″ scale, single packs for the dwarves, 6″ single packs, new 6″ two packs, new battle packs, and new beast packs with Azog and his Warg. Pricewise, these figures will be the same price as we saw figures from wave 1, making it a very affordable and awesome line for fans of Middle-earth to collect. You can expect to find these figures out during the Summer of 2013.

You can check out tons of images taken by the awesome folks at Figures.Com in their The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey gallery.

Some other very cool info coming out of Toy Fair about how this line may develop going forward:

  1. The Bridge Direct wants to do a Smaug in 3.75 scale. This would of course be a large figure even in that scale, to be bigger than the Dwarves.
  2. The Desolation of Smaug packaging will be different than The Unexpected Journey packaging. These figures will be out in the fall/winter of this year.
  3. There will be a party of Thorin pack that will cost $80, allowing you to get all the Dwarves in one package.
  4. There will be a Comic-Con 2013 figure.

Generic Lego LogoToy Fair 2013 also brings us goodies from Lego for fans of Middle-earth. As you all know, Lego has been creating some great sets based on events that happened during The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey movies. During Toy Fair we got to see more from The Lord of the Rings, covering The Council of Elrond, The Corsair Ship sequence, Gandalf the Grey vs Saruman, and The Black Gates. The Wizard Battle will be a 113 piece set with a price tag of $13, The Black Gates set is a 656 piece set with a $60 price tag, Council of Elrond a 243 piece set costing $30, and The Corsair Ship set, which has 756 pieces, costs $100. All four of these sets are due to arrive in June of this year. They also had a card at the show mentioning that sets for The Desolation of Smaug will be arriving in December of 2013.

You can check out a ton of pictures from Figures.Com in their The Lord of the Rings gallery.

You can also check out videos from the booth via FBTB.Com from their The Lord of the Rings video page.