Fili barrelThe 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.

 

DominicMonaghan_Spider_640x360 Dominic Monaghan chats about his nature series Wild Things (which finally debuts on Australian telly this week) with Michael Idato of The Sydney Morning Herald.

 


Though he made his name as an actor, you could be forgiven for thinking Dominic Monaghan, crawling through the undergrowth in pursuit of his quarry, owes more to David Attenborough than Laurence Olivier. Continue reading “Dominic Monaghan chats about Wild Things”

DJEWoodSALT LAKE CITY — Elijah Wood isn’t joining fellow Fellowship actors Billy Boyd, Sean Astin and John Rhys-Davies for autographs and panels at FantasyCon July 3 – 5, but he is joining the adventure in other ways. The Daily Herald broke the news yesterday that Wood will DJ an evening event the night before it all starts to get FantasyCon rolling.

The event follows an invite-only charity event that same evening for seven different children’s charities that helps kids get access to FantasyCon that otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend an event like a big public convention. You can read more about Wood’s event RIGHT HERE and read more about the guests at FantasyCon here. Those who purchase VIP tickets (ticketing here) to FantasyCon look to have access to the event that will likely have very limited availability to the public. Continue reading “DJ E-Wood? FantasyCon lands Elijah Wood for its opening night party”

FantasyCon logoTheOneRing.net is a major part of FantasyCon coming up on July 3 – 5 in Salt Lake City and there is a pretty incredible lineup of of Middle-earth content at the show. We are counting the top 10 reasons to attend one of the largest Tolkien gatherings in the history of conventions. Continue reading “The top 10 reasons for Tolkienites to attend FantasyCon”

1401754684350.jpg-620x349 Viggo Mortensen chats with The Age newspaper about his latest movie effort, The Two Faces of January.


The voice on the phone is husky, familiar, and just a little menacing. “I was told to call this number,” the speaker says. I give a little shudder before realising it’s Viggo Mortensen, calling as planned to talk about his new film, The Two Faces of January. Phew. Continue reading “The many faces of Viggo Mortensen”

Adam Brown as Ori in The HobbitSALT LAKE CITY — At a press conference to announce its inclusion of Simon Pegg as a guest, FantasyCon said it has the largest contingent of Tolkien guests at a fan convention ever, including parts of the staff of TheOneRing.net.

Coming from the Lord of the Rings films:
Sean Astin
Billy Boyd
John Rhys-Davies.

Scheduled for visits from The Hobbit films are:
Adam Brown
John Callen
Peter Hambleton
Jed Brophy
William Kircher
Ken Stott
Graham McTavish
Sylvester McCoy

Other Tolkien-related content:
TheOneRing.net
Doug Adams
Artist Donato Giancola
Artist Justin Gerard

You can read the full article, including the announcement of Simon Pegg, right here.