Finish with the first few reports, check email and find two more, go figure. This time around there’s a report from a fan that flew in from Finland for the event!
When I first heard about Collectormania 3, I knew it would be a perfect opportunity to meet Billy Boyd. It only takes 3 hours to fly from Finland to England, and as it was going to be on the May Day weekend, both my aunt and I were able to travel. We booked the trip (we actually got the last two flight tickets!), and then flew to London on the 1st of May.
Saturday, the 3rd of May
We wanted to get to Milton Keynes as early as possible, so we got up at 6 am. We were downstairs at 7 am when they started to serve breakfast at our hotel. After a quick breakfast, we almost ran to Euston station and made it to the 7.55 am train, arriving to Milton Keynes Central around 8.40 am. We had a look at the map, then walked along Midsummer Boulevard to the shopping centre.
The Middleton Hall was already pretty crowded at 9.00 am, and there was a long queue to Billy’s desk. Billy hadn’t arrived yet, but we got our queue ticket (number 50). We then walked around taking pictures of John Rhys-Davies, Bruce Hopkins and Tom Felton (my aunt likes Harry Potter). Sala Baker was somewhere else, but my aunt took a picture of him later. We tried to walk around the dealer stalls, but it was very slow because there were so many people.
We went back to Billy’s signing area, but he still wasn’t there, so we sat down to wait. Billy arrived around 10 am together with the same woman who had been seen with him sometimes during the Empire awards. Billy started to autograph pictures, taking photographs with fans once in a while. The Empire woman sat behind Billy for some time, then left, but I spotted her later in the afternoon standing next to a wall, talking with one of the organisers (she went to sit behind Billy this time, too).
Anyway, back to the morning. It took quite a long time before we even got into Billy’s autograph queue (they were giving out queue numbers starting with 390 or something then), but around 11.45 am I finally got to meet Billy. I said “Greetings from Finland” as I gave him his present, a necklace with a gold washing pan (made in Finland, of course). Billy seemed to be slightly surprised about where I came from, and that could have been the reason why he talked to me a little bit longer. He said the necklace was beautiful and asked what the thing hanging from it was (the gold washing pan), then he turned the package around and noticed my card with a tiny picture of my hobbit hole (Billy: “Nice.”). On the other side of the card was my home address and mobile phone number, Billy had a very quick look at them, too.
I then gave Billy the Pippin picture I had gotten for free when I paid for the autograph, and he asked me who he should sign it for. I told him my real name, and he signed the picture with [my real name], Lots of love, Billy Boyd x (The “t” in my name actually looks more like a “d”, but I don’t mind). I thanked Billy for the autograph and asked if we could take a picture together. He said sure, so Billy and I moved to the other side of the table (Billy put his arm on my shoulder), and my aunt took the picture. I then got ready to leave, but Billy shouted “Thanks for the gift” once more, so I smiled and said goodbye to him. I stayed next to the signing area with my aunt, she took even more pictures of Billy and Andy Sekis, whose desk was next to Billy’s. We then left to sit on a bench to pack away the autographed photograph (after having made sure that the ink from Billy’s silver pen had dried).
We went back to the dealer stalls (I bought an Elven brooch), then my aunt decided it was time for lunch. After eating, we checked out some shops and returned to Billy’s signing desk, finding out he was having lunch and was supposed to be back at 2 pm. A little before 2, we went to stand right next to the exit of Billy’s signing queue. Billy had been brought in trough the entrance of the queue in the morning, but now there were too many people, so around 2.30 pm, Billy walked right in front of us to his place. We stayed for fifteen minutes, then made way for the others.
We came back to see Billy a little later. I climbed up next to a little plant area, so I had a pretty good view of Billy (this was when I noticed the Empire woman for the second time). The organisers had apparently thought it would be faster to take pictures in the queue with Billy walking around, instead of having Billy stand up and sit down over and over again. My aunt got tired of standing so she found a place to sit, but I stayed where I was. The last time I looked, they were letting in people with queue tickets numbered 280 or less.
Someone came to film Billy with a big video camera, so we stayed to watch that. We left a little past 4 pm, my aunt stopping quickly to take some better pictures of Tom Felton. We walked back to the train station in Milton Keynes and came back to the Euston station at 5.30 pm.
All in all, the day was really wonderful and it was great to meet Billy and get to see all the other stars. I flew back to Finland late on Sunday evening, a bit tired, but very, very happy.
My pictures will be posted sometimes soon on this site: http://koti.mbnet.fi/gaprohan/amyc3.html
For the past few days a great UK-convention called Collectormania took place just outside of London. It was attended by no less then five actors from The Lord of the Rings: John Rhys-Davies, Andy Serkis, Billy Boyd, Sala Baker and last but not least Bruce Hopkins. Some of the first reactions from people that attended have just come in, take a read!
Ringer Spy Irascian chimed in with a short snippet about the event:
Only one more day (after today) for UK fans to get a chance to meet Billy Boyd, John Rhys-Davies, Andy Serkis, Bruce Hopkins and Sala Baker. Monday is the last day. The event is free but autographs on nice shiny new high quality New Line photo’s cost £15 each (£10 for Bruce – bargain!) The only dilemma is which photo to pick. They also have some amazing A3-sized glossy photo’s of Gollum, Billy and Sauron available for a small additional charge.
Last night’s special screening of “The Two Towers” was sold out, with all five cast members scheduled for a fan Q&A session for 30 minutes. At saturday’s screening the cast stayed well past the 30 minutes and seemed happy to stay until every last question was answered. No major new news although it was interesting to hear John Rhys-Davies say that his re-shoot schedule had been delayed as the reshoots are now going on much longer – into July. It was also encouraging to hear Andy Serkis say that PJ is genuinely being sincere when he says that he thinks the third film is going to be easily the best of the three!
As always a better report with probably lots of awesome pictures will be up at Irascian’s own website pretty soon, keep an eye out on the frontpage for a link to that.
Next up is Cathyvicki who was there as well and listed some of her most memorable moments:
Just a quick report about Collectormania 3 at Milton Keynes this weekend. I went to both LOTR movie screenings and main events that happened during actors talk (Billy Boyd, John Rhys Davies, Andy Serkis, Sala Baker and Bruce Hopking) were as follows:
1) JRD tipping Sean Astin for an Oscar nomination for an ‘astounding’ performance in ROTK.
2) Andy Serkis’ re-enactment of the Gollum/Smeagol argumant in TTT. Absolutely bloody brilliant. What an amazing actor!
3) Sala Baker….that is all.
4) JRD sitting in the audience with us mortals and having a good old natter before anyone else came in. (the others needed an introduction…he didnt!)
Im still in a euphric haze about the whole weekend at the moment but if I remember anything else I will let you know!
And lastly there’s Kristina who didn’t so much send in a report but just a link to a bunch of pictures of herself next to the celebrities at Collectormania. Billy Boyd-fans rejoice; most of the pictures feature him. [More]
Ringer Spy Trueogre sends in this report and accompanying pictures from the Collectormania 2003 event from Milton Keynes in the UK. I absolutely love the picture of John Rhys Davies with the birthday balloon.
Trueogre writes:
After missing my train to Milton Keynes, I managed to get on the next train.
My hopes was to arrive at 8:00am to get there early and get in line, but with the missed train there was no hope of that, as I had to now arrive at 9:00am.
One thing about Milton Keynes, is that it is badly signposted – there are no maps telling you where MK Shopping Centre is. I had to follow a bunch of other people whom I thought looked like they were going to a fair.
I arrived to the Shopping Centre and still no directions to the event. I had to blindly stumble around hoping I was going in the right direction. But luck have it, I was.
The first thing I came to was a signing booth for Warwick Davis, Virginia Hey, Lou Ferrigno, David Prowse, Kenny Baker, Daniel Logan and Chris Sabat. No Lord of the Rings yet.
So advancing into the swell of people who had turned up, I saw the next lot of signing booths, this time it was Paul McGann, Tom Felton, Devon Murry, Alan Ruck, Armin Shimerman, Corey Nemec, John Rhys Davis, Bruce Hopkins, and Sala Baker.
Over to the sides were Andy Serkis, and Billy Boyd. And Robert Englund with Samantha Bond.
First things first was go get my virtual ticket, John Rhys Davis, was already signing items, so I immediately got tickets to him as well as Armin. Since Andy and Billy weren’t there yet, a queue had built up none the less. My ticket for Billy was an orange 148 and my ticket for Andy was a blue 109.
I also had to get a queuing ticket for Robert Englund, his queue was more slower than John’s!
With my tickets in hand, I was free to wander around until it was my time to get into line. The time now was about 10am. Sala had no ticket for queing, so I immediately got into line to get his signature and picture. He was very nice and shook my hand, but me being me headed my hands straight for the pictures where upon they quickly zoomed to his hand. We swapped greetings and then I popped the question. ‘Do you fight Aragorn at the end of the third movie?’ he answered ‘I can’t say anything.’ so I said ‘Ah but you’re not denying it are you.’ he signed my photo and then replied ‘I don’t know what Peter Jackson has planned.’ I left only to realise I hadn’t paid the fellow for his two signatures, I felt like an idiot as people thought I was pushing in, but I wanted to pay the fellow his money which I eventually did.
I then went to queue in Bruce Hopkin’s queue as he didn’t have a ticket system either. He was very pleasant and lovely to meet. I asked him if he was going to be in the next movie, but his reply was that when filming Two Towers, Peter Jackson liked his role that he expanded it. But it was too late to insert him into the Pelennor Fields as they had already been filmed. So he appears more in Two Towers than he does in Return of the King. He said he was going back for reshoots soon.
Finally I got to queue for John, but disaster, I dropped my camera and busted it into a zillion bits. Had to buy another one sharpish, but I missed out my opportunity to have my photo with him. I had to get one from afar. But I wished him a happy birthday.
I asked the lady who looked after John’s queue what number they were on, she said 30. It was around 12:00pm, and he’d only signed a few, boy when John speaks, he speaks. So I went for some lunch while I waited for my numbers to come up.
When I got back around 1:30pm, I found that Billy and Andy had gone for lunch and they wouldn’t be back till 2pm. They were on tickets 160, so I was well in the zone as well as for Andy, so I waited for them to return. They didn’t come back till 2:30pm and the people that were in the queue when they went on their lunch break were let in first, then I got to get in the queue because of my ticket.
The queue went quite quickly, and by the time I got to Billy, I was in a fluster because I hadn’t got my stuff ready and I was rummaging in my bag for my ticket and photo’s to sign, so I hadn’t got a question prepared.
I quickly joined the queue for Andy and when I got there, I spoke to him about his role in Othello, but he said he hurt his back, and couldn’t do the last three weeks of the show.
All in all the ticket system wasn’t bad, but it was hard to hear the numbers come up, as the speaker was poor so you got muffled information. The only way to find out was to keep asking the helpers, what number, what number? They had a board up telling you what numbers they were on, but it wasn’t updated as quickly as it should have been.
But I did enjoy myself, and I’m very greatful that Milton Keynes held such an event, and that all the actors were gracious and kind enough to appear at the event. It’s something I won’t forget in a hurry.
I think the most unsettling thing about this whole Wellington Premiere kerfuffle has been the fact that nobody was saying WHAT was wrong with the Embassy Theatre and so it was difficult to judge whether New Line’s demand that it be brought up to ”a suitable standard” was a big deal or not.
The Embassy trustees, the Mayor of Wellington and New Line have been talking to each other and although initially they were sending out some confusing signals, today it looks like they’re determined to find a solution that will keep the premiere in Wellington.
Mayor Kerry Prendergast was interviewed on Radio NZ this morning and she told listeners (finally) what New Line wanted to see improved: The seating, the toilets, the paint in the auditorium (not sure I heard that right) and the addition of a lift.
Well, that’s a relief. If they’d been asking for major structural refitting to make it earthquake-proof – something I understand the Trust would like to see happen – well, I can’t see how the work could even be done in time. But as it is, it seems do-able between now and December.
The Mayor was drawn into revealing the level of support they were thinking of offering: They would be happy to match the Embassy Trust’s contribution to the upgrade dollar for dollar, and were looking at a figure of around $2 million; apparently the Trust feels that they can match that figure from their own fundraising.
There will be a meeting later today, where the Trust will bring their revised figures for the necessary refurbishments to the theatre, and the Council will vote on their level of funding of it. So with any luck the issue should be resolved today!
The battle of the Pelennor fields – the greatest battle of the Third Age. Theoden and his army engage the Haradrim, while the footmen of Gondor drive against the hosts of Morgul under the walls of Minas Tirith. As the fighting grows furious and Theoden lies wounded on the field, Merry and Eowyn find themselves confronting the Black Captain of Mordor’s host, the Witch King.
Does Eomer stand tall as a leader of the Rohirrim or does he fail as a military leader? Did you lose hope when the black-sailed fleet came floating up the Anduin? What brings Aragorn up the river in time … luck, providence or something else? And who exactly slays the nazgul king?
An epic confrontation between the forces of good and evil unfolds, and as the Anduin flows red we witness both personal triumph and tragedy on the Pelennor fields.
Join us this weekend as Hall of Fire examines Return of the King Book V, Chapter VI – The battle of the Pelennor fields.
Upcoming Chats:
May 10-11 Denethor, Steward of Gondor
May 17-18 RoTK Book V, Chapter 7 Pyre of Denethor
May 24-25 The Valar, wise counsels or strategic dimwits?
Points of interest include the retreat of the Valar to Aman, bringing the elves to Valinor, the ban of the Noldor, setting up the Dunedain on Numenor and despatching the Istari to Middle-Earth.
Although the Valar were really nice guys, they seem incredibly naive in their decisions at times, creating as many problems as they solve. And did they care more for their Valinor than for the well-being of all Arda, forsaking the job Eru had given them.
Times:
Saturday Chat: 5:30pm ET (17:30) [also 11:30pm (23:30) CET and 7:30am Sunday (07:30) AET]
Sunday Chat: 7:00 pm (19:00) CET [also 1:00pm (13:00) ET and 3:00am (03:00) Monday morning AET]
ET = Eastern Time, USA’s East Coast CET = Central European Time, Central Europe AET = Australian East Coast
Having trouble working out a time zone near you? Try this page.
Do you have a possible topic for Hall of Fire? Drop us a line at halloffire@theonering.net. And don’t forget that you can check out previous chats here.
The Black Rider Tour is coming to a store near you!
Nine Decipher employees are setting out to across the land on a promotional tour for the Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game to play you in challenge matches and tournaments, and hand out exclusive Black Rider cards that you can only get where one of them visit! Best of all is that when you beat one of these ‘Nine Riders’ in a tournament you can win a complete box of The Two Towers expansion!
All you need to do to get your hand on one of these limited foil Black Rider promo cards is show up at one of the retail stores they visit, you don’t even need to play to get one!
