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DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this report are those of Ian Smith (this IS a personal web site and a PERSONAL report!) and do not reflect the views and opinions of any other organisations or clubs that Ian Smith belongs to or may be involved with. Specifically this article does not purport to represent in any shape or form the views or opinions of TheOneRing.net or the Official Lord of the Rings Movie Fan Club or any of its members. Whoever it was who said 'Better late than never' clearly hasn't seen my 'Outlook' in-basket, which is currently full of requests, thankfully all very polite, asking where the RingCon 2003 weblog report and this promised oscar party report are. I can only apologise for the delays. I've been playing 'catch up' with the real world since RingCon 2003 and the New Zealand trip and there just aren't enough hours in a day at the moment. If you're one of the many people waiting for responses to requests for photo's or whatever, please accept my apologies and bear with me. I hope to be back on track by early May and yes, as soon as the oscar party report is complete I'll get started on the RingCon 2003 one! OK, moving swiftly on ....
		For many fans this third annual TheOneRing.net oscar party was the chance to celebrate not just the oscar awards for the third movie, but the sheer achievement of all three movies in the trilogy. It was therefore not really surprising that tickets sold out within minutes of being made available online, where in the past it's taken a couple of weeks at least before the 'House full' signs have needed to be displayed. Although numbers were limited to 1100, this oscar party was LOTR fandom's biggest celebration since the ROTK world premiere in Wellington and almost as high profile. With it also being likely to be the last truly international LOTR fan celebration, the event was also tinged with a certain amount of sadness (and, for those of us suffering from 'LOTR burnout' after three years of it, a certain amount of relief that the journey is now at last over!). Undoubtedly friendships will be renewed at other events like Comic-Con, RingCon 2004 or the sudden deluge of 'Johnny-come-lately' LOTR convention events that seem to be springing up on an almost daily basis ('Money makes the world go around, the world go around, the world.....'). However TORn's parties were the first big movie fan events, and also the only events to be acknowledged by so many of the major players and so this really did feel for most of us like the 'beginning of the end', in a way that the Wellington premiere didn't (we knew the cast and crew had another three month's promotion ahead of them despite all the staged farewells). As someone outside the whole TORn hierarchy, and as someone who had never been to Los Angeles before that first 300-attendee oscar party, it has been a wild two year journey, and it's interesting to reflect on how TORn has grown over that period. They have come a long way, and while bigger isn't usually better in my experience I was very impressed at this event with the way they seemed to take on board 'lessons learnt' from previous years, ultimately providing a 'better than anyone could have expected' climax to their series of party celebrations. Two years ago I wrote about how special that first oscar party event was, and how it was unlikely to be as special again. Well I was wrong! It was just as good, if not better, last year and 'Return of the One Party' proved to be the icing on the cake of all three parties. Heck, even the mainstream media, who apparently can't use the word 'fan' without adding the word 'rabid' in front of it, had to acknowledge this year's TORn party as 'the hottest ticket in town' on oscar night. For a group of unpaid volunteers to have achieved such rave reviews is an amazing accomplishment by any standards. But I'm getting ahead of myself with all the 'opinion' summary stuff. Let's start at the beginning.. I had asked my TORn contacts if I could visit the venue, The American Legion in Hollywood, the day before the party so that I could carry out a quick 'reccie'. I was worried that the maze-like warren that was last year's venue might be indicative of what to expect this year, and concerned that I didn't have my expert assistant Susan (Mooch) from last year to guide me around. Trying hard not to intrude (but probably failing) I looked around the two main floors of the main venue on the Saturday before the party - every nook and cranny seemed to be a hive of activity. I had known, of course, that certain key players in TORn's organisation worked really hard, all year round, on this party. However it was a real surprise to see just how many people were giving up their time on that Saturday visit, carrying, stacking, painting, glueing, decorating, planning and organising things so that the venue could be transformed into something suitable for a real LOTR celebration in the minimal time available. The fact that volunteer workers were joined in these preparations by Lawrence Makaore, Sala Baker and Bruce Hopkins from the movie cast and crew, popping in to see what help they could give and to offer encouragement to all, probably says more than mere words can about the special relationship TORn have been able to forge between the fans on one side and the movie makers and the cast and crew on the other. For this year's party my mum had agreed to act as 'photographer and reporter assistant', or as Susan, who helped me last year, more accurately described it, 'chief Sherpa and backpack carrier'. We arrived (slightly early) to find a bustle of activity going on as last-minute corrections and setting up took place. 'Stressed out but excited' is probably the most apt description I can come up with for how the party organisers seemed to be coping. Despite the best efforts of all concerned the gates were apparently a bit late opening,but not so much that anybody had any real cause for complaint. 'Ah well. We may be 15 minutes late but at least it's not half an hour like last year' a TORn staffer explained with a world-weary sigh that seemed to imply he felt personally responsible for the small delay and inconvenience a few people may have suffered. To most the delay didn't matter - it was enough that the excitement in the air was tangible and it wasn't very long before people started to stream in through the main doors of the venue. Having manoevered our way past the main barrier marked for the "VIP"s and Press we headed straight for the Press registration desk which was just before a canopied 'blue carpet' area leading to the VIP marquee. The number of press passes waiting to be collected was much larger than last year which implied photographs were going to be difficult (I actually counted 62 heads at the press barriers just before the first 'technical oscar' winner arrived - not good if you're hoping to get some exclusive quotes or a 'facing the camera' photo). More worrying was the warning that Elijah and Dom would not be walking down the carpet, being driven instead to the car park at the other end so that they could avoid the press and head straight for the VIP area. This was a major blow as far as the fan club magazine article was concerned: Fans want pictures of 'hobbits' and this sounded like it was going to be a major obstacle. I had one card up my sleeve though: TORn had afforded me the special privelege of a VIP pass which the other press didn't have - there might be the chance to snap Elijah or Dom in the VIP area? Alas, another disappointment followed. This year the VIP area had a separate 'very very important person' area cordoned off within the main VIP one and nobody was allowed access to this area. I knew from my premiere experiences that the chances of the cast and crew actually leaving that cordoned off area were as close to zero as makes no difference, and while it was definitely the right thing to do where the celebrities were concerned (I remembered the scrum in the VIP area last year when Billy and Dom arrived), it wasn't going to help me with the 'photo's of hobbits' I needed to get. It was around this time that I decided I was getting far too old for all this fan event malarkey! Fortunately, this story has a happy ending. Dom and Elijah either changed their minds or the organisers had been misinformed, because they spent some time on the press carpet. Although there were a lot of press folks, most far more 'high profile' than me, the press area had a ramp which meant that although I was too far away to ask questions or hear the responses to questions that others were asking I was high up enough to manage to get some shots without someone's hair or camera being in the way (as had happened last year).
Even the separate 'no access' area for the celebrities turned out to be a bit of a God send too - it meant that I didn't waste time hanging around the VIP area for the remote possibility of a split-second photo opportunity, missing what was happening in the main area (as had happened last year). So overall, although there were more press and more restrictions this year it meant I had more fun than last year, and was able to enjoy the party much as other fans did, instead of worrying endlessly about getting interviews and photo's. Continue to page 2 of report Celebrity arrivals and quotes (original report) Don't forget you can check out reports of lots of other Lord of the Rings -themed events in the Web Logs section

Email: ian@iansmith.co.uk