It’s Thursday, and already the Marriott hotel in downtown Atlanta is pulsing with music, crowds and excitement. DragonCon is upon us! And staffers from TORn are looking forward to connecting with our fellow fans.
We’ll be at our ‘fan table’ in our usual spot (Hyatt Exhibition Level, opposite the entrance to the Art Show). We have some awesome new buttons for sale, as well as this year’s shirt designs – the Prancing Pony Club:
And Bilbo from the Rankin/Bass The Hobbit:
Please come by the table and say hi. As an added bonus – if you come and tell us something Boromir would have done (in the style of Denethor, a la ‘Boromir would have remembered his father’s need…’), we have a special secret prize for you!
Join us in Bree!
Friday night is of course the annual ‘Evening at Bree‘, starting at 8.30pm. We’re in the Grand Ballroom in the Courtland Grand (same venue as last year), and we’ll have the Brobdingnagian Bards and Beth Patterson playing again, as well as a new (to Bree) band this year, the duo Kinnfolk. The Elf Choir will sing for us, and of course we’ll have the costume contest. (If you’d like to enter, please sign up before the event, either at the High Fantasy Track room: Marriott L401, or at our table.)
Panels
There is lots to enjoy for Tolkien fans this year. TORn’s own panel, ‘An Hour with TheOneRing.net’, when staffers deej, Madeye Gamgee and greendragon will be joined by TORn’s good friend Knewbettadobetta, is Saturday 5.30pm in the Hyatt International South. You can also find greendragon on The Rings of Power Season 2 panel (Friday 1pm, Marriott A601), and join many excellent Tolkien scholars and friends of TORn for ‘Harmony and Dissonance: Creation in Tolkien’s Mythos’ (Sunday 1pm, Marriott L401). For those who stay right through the end of the con, come and Scour the Shire with us at 11.30am on Monday, Marriott L401.
Dance Party
The High Fantasy Track’s ‘Goblin Ball’ goes 90s this year – and our own deej will be DJing once again! Put on your plaid shirt and DMs, apply some frosty lipstick, and come and party 1990s style. We’ll be dancing in the Marriott A601 from 10pm on Sunday night.
As if that weren’t enough…
Tolkien lovers abound at DragonCon this year! Artist Donato Giancola is well-known to fans of Middle-earth, and he’s this year’s Guest of Honour in the Art Show – so be sure to stop by and visit him there. Another featured guest is singer, songwriter, actor and well-known Tolkien fan Jason Charles Miller, who will be performing and appearing in a couple of panels.
The Prancing Pony made everyone feel like a Hobbit at Comic Con, and now you can give back to Barliman the barkeep!
Photo: Middle Earth Enterprises Team Picture
Our pals at SDCCBlog.com have opened voting for Best Of San Diego Comic Con 2025, affectionately known as The Shruggies, and The Prancing Pony Booth from Middle Earth Enterprises has made the short list of nominees!
Click here to vote for TheOneRing.net booth and the Prancing Pony Club t-shirt for best exclusive!
Heads up: when you fill out the first 4 poll questions, the page automatically refreshes with the rest of the awards categories. We need your vote to catch up to the current leader LEGO!
Vote Vote Vote here! Let’s win one for the old Gaffer!
– Samwise Gamgee, if he went to Comic Con
Bringing the Prancing Pony to life
Middle Earth Enterprises, the stewards of all things LOTR and Hobbit, made their comic con debut in oversized fashion with a book, cartoon and movie accurate scale build of the pub the Hobbits arrive at in Bree. The Prancing Pony, under the peaceful management of Barliman Butterbur, is famously the place where “it comes in pints!”
If the Prancing Pony booth made you feel something, please VOTE at the polls now and be sure to tag @theoneringnet in your photos on IG. Voting ends Friday August 8th.
San Diego Comic Con is almost upon us – and we are looking forward to seeing our fellow fans there. Here are some of the things Tolkien fans can look forward to this year:
First and foremost, be sure to visit us at Booth #1934. There will be so much going on there! We’ll have our two new shirts designs for 2025 – official licensed apparel, a steal at just $30 each.
AND as if that wasn’t enough – returning to SDCC is the legend himself JED BROPHY, who will be signing all weekend at TORN’s booth #1934. Jed is the only actor to feature in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Hobbit trilogy, AND The Rings of Power. Plus he is a fabulous guy – don’t miss your chance to meet him and snag an autograph.
More booths – don’t miss them!
When you’ve had your fill at TORn’s booth, you might stroll across the aisle and visit incredible artist Jerry Vanderstelt at #1931. You’ll want to check out all his art – and in particular, he has created a new original artwork based on the Rankin/Bass animated The Hobbit. There will be FREE prints of this amazing masterpiece – but to claim them, you’ll have to go on a quest to another booth… Middle-earth Enterprises are making their first con appearance ever, inside the Dark Horse booth #2615. We’ll say no more about it, except that you will NOT WANT TO MISS IT! The Vanderstelt prints are not the only treasures to be claimed there…
Our good friends Weta Workshop return to SDCC after a five year absence, with a big new booth #3613. You’ll also find the wonderful Badali Jewelry near door A at booth #715.
Panels to share all the latest news and views!
If you can tear yourself away from such an exciting show floor, we have PANELS for you:
Friday 2.30pm, Room 5AB: The Lord of the Rings: What’s Next?
This is TORn’s own, unofficial panel; which means you’ll get all the latest gossip and grist from the rumour mill! Our ears are to the ground and we have thoughts to share on all the goodies coming up in Tolkiendom. What will we see in The Rings of Power Season 3? When will we be hunting for Gollum…? Join us to speculate!
Sunday 2.15pm, Room 6BCF: Middle-earth: The Adventure Ahead
For this panel, TORn is collaborating with Middle-earth Enterprises to bring you official news from Weta Workshop, The Brandywine Festival, Return to Moria and more – all the latest announcements from Middle-earth Enterprises and their licensees. And there may be some very special guests!
Phew! So much to keep us all busy – and this is supposedly a ‘quiet’ year!! We don’t have an official party or offsite experience happening this year; we are drawing breath before the big year with all that will be happening in 2026! BUT there is so much to see and visit on the show floor, and we hope to see you at our booth #1934, and at our panels. Hanging with our fellow fans – it doesn’t get better than this! See you in San Diego!
Oh and – if you can’t make it to San Diego, or if you just know you’re going to have the post con blues a week from now, then you should plan on going on Comic Con The Cruise! It’s next January – but right now we are giving you the chance to WIN a Cruise for Two! Don’t delay – enter today!
Feast your eyes! Here’s a first look at the new shirt designs we’ll be selling at our booth (#1934) at San Diego Comic Con this year.
First of all, if you have crazy visions of yourself in Bree, you might find yourself down at the Prancing Pony Club (complete with sparkle of course):
Next – we’re very excited to reveal that we’re partnering with Middle-earth Enterprises in bringing fan favorite the Rankin/Bass The Hobbit to SDCC first the first time. These Hobbit shirts are EXCLUSIVE and some of the first official merch ever for the animated TV special! Quantities are extremely limited.
Alas, these shirts will not be for sale online. We WILL have the Prancing Pony Club shirt for sale at DragonCon. Let us know if you’d like to see The Hobbit shirt for sale there as well!
More details of TORn’s participation in San Diego Comic Con coming soon; we hope to see you there, bright and early, to snap up these special shirts before they’re gone!
Have you ever wanted to listen to the sounds of Mirkwood? Hear the flow of the Brandywine River? Or perhaps stand in the midst of whistling winds on Caradhras? Soon, you will be able to – thanks to the extraordinary concept and creativity of Jordan Rannells.
Jordan is a composer and sound engineer, with many years experience in the business. His work will be familiar to some Middle-earth fans: he’s an editor for the Prancing Pony podcast. He also has his own podcast – Music of Middle-earth – and, as if that wasn’t enough, he worked with renowned Tolkien artist John Howe on his audiobook Ultimate Fantasy Art Academy.
But Jordan has a dream and a vision – or perhaps one should say, a ‘hearing’! He has long felt that audio books are lacking something. In computer gaming, the artificial realm is brought to life with music, sound effects and ambient sound; the same has long been true of radio plays. And yet, when we listen to books record by brilliant readers such as Stephen Fry and – most recently in Middle-earth – Andy Serkis, we generally only hear their voices delivering the text.
Jordan has a plan to change that. He’s creating (to quote his own words) ‘an audio soundscape to accompany your journey through Middle-earth while you read J.R.R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings’. He tells us:
This is something that has never been done before. It is on a scale far above any of our wildest Tolkien fan dreams. I will have CHAPTER SPECIFIC audio.
I will be writing an entire score. Each piece will run alongside the length of an entire chapter of the book.
I will be using advanced 3D immersive audio equipment to record the natural world. These recordings will be inserted into the Soundscape to make you feel like you are walking alongside the Fellowship.
I will be designing and mixing sound FX for creatures like the Balrog, Ringwraiths, and many more to appear along your journey through the story.
All of these layers will be presented separately and together to have a multitude of listening experiences for your adventures in this world. They will be composed and mixed for the purpose of listening while you read, but these files will also be excellent for relaxing, D&D nights, immersing into other fantasy worlds, and more!
Composer and Sound Engineer Jordan Rannells
Jordan recently shared with TORn some insight into HOW exactly he will create this incredible soundscape. Thanks to the latest technology (such as 3D microphones), he can capture locational sound, which will surround the listener. He intends to record specific, different sound environments for all the realms of Middle-earth (no two forests will be the same!); and to have continuous, through-composed audio, with no looping. He also plans to create different speed versions of the soundscape – with one timed perfectly to be played as background whilst you listen along to Andy Serkis’ recording of The Lord of the Rings!
All of this is a huge undertaking, of course! We’re looking forward to hearing how Jordan’s journey to create this audio feast progresses; we hope to connect with him in the coming months, as he conjures and explores his soundscape for Tolkien’s world. Meanwhile, if you’re as excited by this project as we are, you’ll definitely want to know more – and see how you can get involved, and perhaps even lend your voice to the work! Click here to read all the details about this amazing undertaking. We wish Jordan the best of luck – can’t wait to hear the finished product!
As we all know, this year is the 20th anniversary of the release of Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring, first in his Lord of the Rings film trilogy. To celebrate, New Zealand Post are bringing out some spectacular new stamps, with brand new artwork inspired by the movie – and we’re delighted to have an EXCLUSIVE first look for you here at TheOneRing.net. Fans will NOT want to miss adding these gorgeous works of art to any collection!
