We are going all out with our Luau theme for the Laketown Luau, including a Lei for every attendee. This in addition to our Tiki Piñata and the Hula costume contest, including a mundane category for those not in costume. Don’t worry, there will be props to help you along. Continue reading “Laketown Luau – Get Lei’d at San Diego Comic Con”
Category: Meet Ups
We are very excited to announce that our long-time supporters, WETA Workshop, have come on board to Co-Sponsors the Laketown Luau – A Tolkien Celebration! Weta will be sending a few little prizes to the party, along with a few of the artists attending the convention. This will be a great chance to hang out in a more casual environment with some of the people responsible for the look and feel of Middle-earth. Their sponsorship also allows us to drop the pricing down to $30 a person. Yup, you heard that right! For those who already have tickets, you will be receiving a $10 refund per person, and for those who were still on the fence, jump off that fence and join us at the Kona Kai for a night that will be truly memorable! [Buy Tickets]
We are also excited to announce Badali Jewelry is also participating at the Supporter level and will be providing some great shiny prizes for you to win during one of our gaming activities. More on the games and activities later on, but first, let’s get a little history on why a Luau.
Continue reading “Laketown Luau Gets Some Sponsorship – Prices Lowered!”
The first annual FantasyCon was an amazing weekend! Tens of thousands of fans from around the country and many actors from around the world traveled to beautiful Salt Lake City, Utah for an engagingly fun weekend of group panels, signings, photo ops and fireside chats. Here is a recap of some of the fun from several TheOneRing.net staff members who made the journey there.
Elijah Wood Hosts Kickoff Party
Starting off the week was an amazing dance night hosted by Frodo himself DJ ElWood!
Middle-earth Kick-Off!
To start FantasyCon with a celebrity blast, an all-star group of Tolkien guests took the stage including:
- Sean Astin (Samwise)
- Adam Brown (Ori)
- Billy Boyd (Pippin)
- Jed Brophy (Nori)
- John Callen (Óin)
- Peter Hambleton (Glóin)
- William Kircher (Bifur)
- Sylvester McCoy (Radagast)
- Graham McTavish (Dwalin)
- Mark Ordesky (Executive Producer LOTR)
- John Rhys-Davies (Gimli)
- Ken Stott (Balin)
- author Doug Adams (‘The Music of The Lord of the Rings’)
- artist Donato Giancola
- Badali Jewelry
- …and the staff of TheOneRing.net!
It is now just a little over 2 weeks from the start of San Diego Comic Con International, the biggest and most talked about Scifi/Fantasy convention on the geek calendar. We at TheOneRing.net have been busily planning for an epic week of Hobbity goodness to share with all of you, attendee and stay-at-home fans alike. This is your handy dandy little guide to when and where you can find us throughout the convention.
This year we will only be at one location on the Exhibit Hall floor, sharing space at the WETA booth #3613. We won’t have a huge amount of room in this booth, but then that is because WETA is pulling out all the stops for the final Hobbit film and ‘Bringing It’. You will want to make Booth #3613 a ‘must see’ location, even your non-Tolkien fan friends will want to visit WETA. So stop by the booth, say hello to TORn and WETA folks alike, buy some stuff, have your camera ready and enjoy the geekiness of all things Hobbit.
The full SDCC panel schedule will officially be announced beginning this Thursday, but here is advance notice of when our panel will take place.
An Unofficial look at the final Middle-Earth Film “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” Thursday, 7/24/14, 5:00p.m. – 6:00p.m., Room: Indigo Ballroom at the Hilton Bayfront
The Hilton Bayfront is next to the Convention Center down near Hall H, and the Indigo Ballroom is probably the biggest room we have yet had at SDCC, so don’t be late and risk missing our sneak peek at the final film in the series.
Edited to Add 7/8/14: Warner Bros. has announced their slate of films for SDCC and The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies will be among them. Their panel will be at 10am on Saturday, July 26 in Hall H. Peter Jackson was confirmed to be attending, and will be joined by Director George Miller with Mad Max Fury Road. Also mentioned was Jupiter Ascending and there will be a sneak peek screening of Richard Armitage’s Into the Storm on Wednesday, July 23 at 10pm at the Reading Gaslamp Theater, but no word yet on how to snag tickets for that.
Throughout the weekend TORn staffers will be tweeting, posting pics and videos to Facebook, posting stories here, live streaming, and giving you as much Hobbit news as we possibly can. This will include some of the new projects the actors are working on that are also at SDCC, such as “The Strain” with Sean Astin, “Legends” with Sean Bean and “Outlander” starring Graham McTavish. See the video below for a message from Graham regarding SDCC:
Graham McTavish has confirmed he will be at SDCC, so consider this your official invite to our Laketown Luau on Friday night, beginning at 7pm at the Kona Kai resort on Shelter Island. The SDCC website has finally posted the shuttle routes and we can now announce that the Kona Kai is on the Teal shuttle route. You can find the shuttle schedule here and remember to click on the PDF link at the bottom for the map of the hotels and route information. The Teal route is set to take about 30 minutes to get you between the convention center and the hotel, but if you have a car, the distance is only 6 miles away.
You can only attend the Laketown Luau by purchasing a ticket at our Eventbrite page. With loads of games and a relaxed, outdoor environment, this will be a family friendly party, so bring the kids.
We will update this post or make a new one as soon as we have confirmation of what Warner Bros. might be doing for film previews, including “The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies” and whether PJ will put in an appearance. Same goes for confirmation on other film projects, such as Richard Armitage’s ‘Into the Storm” and Luke Evans’ “Dracula Untold”. We already know Outlander will have a premiere event during SDCC.
The Official Day 1 of FantasyCon was yesterday, July 3 and was filled with cosplay, LARPing, music and heraldry. A few awesome Middle-earth costumers visited our booth, and we even had a Dwarf in a Barrel. The barrel and the 4 Hobbits standee proved to be quite popular with those holding a camera, especially the children.
At 11am TheOneRing.net hosted their first panel at the convention with the Preview of The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies to an enthusiastic crowd. We fully expect that the trailer will be out by the time San Diego Comic Con rolls around in a few weeks, at which point our Preview panel will be dramatically updated.
Near the end of the day, the entirety of the Tolkien programming track was introduced on stage at the Middle-earth kickoff party. Artists, musicians, writers and TheOneRing.net staff on hand, plus an Avalanche of Dwarves, as John Rhys-Davies put it, a Wizard and a pair of Hobbits converged on the Main Ballroom stage to thunderous applause. Moments later, the entire room went silent, you could almost hear a pin drop, along with one wee Hobbit singing his heart out.
During the panel, numerous questions were asked of many Dwarves, Hobbits and a Wizard, but none were handled with quite so much originality as the one about the Dwarven prosthetics.
The day ended with the Red Party, a less bloody affair than the Red Wedding. Costumed denizens of Westeros and many other realms all danced the night away.
Posted in:
- Adam Brown
- Billy Boyd
- Conventions
- Events
- Fans
- FantasyCon
- Graham McTavish
- Hobbit Movie
- J.R.R. Tolkien
- Jed Brophy
- John Callen
- John Rhys-Davies
- Ken Stott
- LotR Movies
- Meet Ups
- Movie Fellowship of the Ring
- Movie Return of the King
- Movie The Two Towers
- Peter Hambleton
- Sean Astin
- Sylvester McCoy
- The Hobbit
- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
- The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
- The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
- The Lord of the Rings
- Tolkien
- William Kircher
Wednesday in Salt Lake City was set up day for FantasyCon at the Salt Palace convention center. The FantasyCon people have been setting things up for days, and when you see some of the images of the sculptures, you will know why. They have gone all out to achieve a rocking cool Fantasy atmosphere, and with the various fan groups they’ve brought in, this promises to be a memorable weekend.
They then closed the hall today at 5pm to allow vendors to leave, or go eat and come back later for the charity event. At 7pm, the doors were opened again for numerous kids and their families who are beneficiaries of various charities, including Angel’s Hands Foundation, Shriners Hospitals for Children, Kids on the Move and Hope Kids. The children and their families were escorted in by a Piper past a processional of costumed warriors, fairies, stormtroopers, Hobbits and wizards. It made for a joyous entry as they were then lead to the main stage for the unveiling of Volos, the King of all the dragons attending the convention.
There are numerous costumed combat troops that will be demonstrating and teaching during the con, there is Dragon training going on, gaming, actors on panels, loads of cosplay everywhere, a Castle, numerous Dragons, giant Sentinels, and last but not least, a Rock Monster.
Panels begin in earnest tomorrow morning, with a Red Party capping off Thursday’s schedule. Friday opens with a Costume parade and Saturday ends the whole convention with a bang, and really really Big Bang of the Fireworks variety. Should you find yourself anywhere near Salt Lake City in the next couple of days, this may well be the funnest way you will find to spend your July 4 holiday. http://www.fantasycon.com