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Click on any picture to see a larger version. Move mouse over picture for explanatory text. IMPORTANT NOTICE: All images on this site are Copyright Ian Smith and may not be reproduced or sold on Ebay, or copied outright to other fan sites without my express permission! Quotes are based on a mini-disc recording and may contain errors owing to high noise levels from convention attendees.

DISCLAIMER: The following sound bites were obtained in a relatively informal atmosphere, not structured or intended to be formal interviews. They are transcribed from original mini-disk recordings 'as is' and may contain transcription errors or not truly reflect an 'official' point of view on the part of the individuals quoted.
It's the early afternoon of the second day. I've just recorded a few words from Craig Parker, but am having problems persuading the event organiser, Louise Henry, that she should also provide some sound bites on how the Fellowship Festival got started. It's not that she has anything to hide, it's just that she's a bit shy and apparently feels that my time would be better spent interviewing the cast and crew. Thankfully, Craig gets involved and cajoles a reluctant interviewee into saying a few words.
By this time it was pretty clear that the teething problems of the first morning had been quickly sorted out, and that the extremely vocal complaints from those who'd suffered from the problems of the first few hours (the late opening, the ticketing screw ups and the delay in getting into the venue once the doors had opened) had pretty much evaporated on the breeze. People were happy. People were smiling. People were having a great time! Of course there had to be the occasional party pooper, but even the cynical old convention whore who writes web logs ;-) was saying how much better the event had been than he expected! In truth, the only chill in the breeze was the seemingly low numbers in attendance and the worry that someone, somewhere, might be losing a lot of money on this event. Of course there were complaints - they're still filling my email in-box as I write - mainly about the 'rip off' pricing. Needless to say these almost exclusively emanate from those that didn't actually get around to attending the event! Regular readers will know I have a slightly confrontational (some might even say aggressively negative) style! MY justification for this - and remember it IS all about me - is that there are way too many 'the glass is not just half-full - it's overflowing' people in the world already and that's why we're in the over-hyped 'you can't believe a word you read' mess of a situation we're in now. ;-P. So this 'conversation' with the event's organiser was always likely to prove problematic: partly because, in my experience, most convention organisers are like the worst kind of second-hand car salesmen (they have to be to get the job done, I guess) - not that I'm saying Louise IS like that - and partly because I've always had an incredible inability to keep my big fat mouth shut or to suffer fools gladly (and I'm afraid I've always regarded the stereotypical second-hand car salesmen as fools, no disrespect to those working in the motor trade)! You should read the following transcript imagining there is a background sound of egg-shells quietly breaking occasionally as the interviewer TRIED to remember he was a guest and it's not good manners to be rude to your generous host, while the interviewee TRIED to remember that the individual proudly wearing a t-shirt that boasted 'Sometimes Brutal. Always Honest!' probably needed to be brought 'on side'. Thankfully Leo from TheOneRing.net was on hand to try and move the poor innocent egg-shells out of harm's way when they looked like being cracked as we ducked and dived around the issues involved in holding an event like this and the, often politically motivated, criticisms there have been of it! I enjoyed my conversation with Louise. I hope you do too!.
		Ian : Let's start at the beginning.... When did you first have the idea of hosting a convention? Louise Henry: I think probably the idea came about in May last year (2003). I'd seen 'Fellowship of the Ring' and I went onto the internet because I wanted to find out more about the making of them. Through that research I started picking up on web sites like The One Ring.net and I started picking up on the fact that there were these events for 'Lord of the Rings'. I'm already an event organiser - I've been an event organiser for eight years, mainly in the business field. Ian : What sort of events? Louise: I did The Cosmopolitan Show - the national magazine company. I had worked for Penton Media and I had produced natural product shows in Holland and in The States. I've done I.T. shows for a few years. So I kind of knew events and exhibitions and I had been freelancing for a year as a group show director. Anyway I started going to these events and researched them and I went to Australia, Germany, the UK and different types of events. I even volunteered as a steward for one event. With all that research I started formulating an idea where I thought 'The fans really love these films. New Line have been amazing - Peter Jackson's been amazing - because they've produced these 'Making Of' movies alongside the DVDs and that really drew people in to sort of wanting to be part of the film-making process'. I started thinking that there could be an event out there where it wasn't just about meeting your favourite idol and shaking hands and autographs, but it was also the make-up process... Weta Workshop coming along. You know, having The Tolkien Society providing the more intellectual content. It's not just a 'meet and greet'. It's about absorbing yourself in 'The Lord of the Rings', both from the Tolkien side and the Peter Jackson side. Those groups never tend to meet, or there's a form of elitism between the two, and that's where the idea came from. Ian : OK. This is the first event. Will there be a second event? Louise: There will be a second event! The second event will be the 27th August - 29th August, Alexandra Palace, 2005, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Tolkien publishing the books. Ian : I'm going to get a little bit controversial here.... Louise: Yes, go for it! Ian : There's a fan base to these movies that tends to be pretty loyal. Obviously there are people here who were at Ring*Con last year and there's a school of thought that says 'These events could help each other. What a shame they're so close together as opposed to this event being in March when it was originally planned because that way there's a six month gap and you can do both!' Any thoughts on that? Louise: Yes. Actually I've got a lot of thoughts on that. I have to say Ring*Con is one of the best events I've ever seen. I think Ring*Con epitomises the environment and ambience that you want at this kind of event, which translate to the whole Tolkien... I think that we should work together. I have to admit that my feelings about Ring*Con, and I went to Ring*Con last year and met Dirk [the organiser], was that it's very German. It's in Bonn. Actually I felt the majority of the audience were a German audience. It was very German. I felt that having our event would not conflict because we were going for a different audience. Also we're reasonably close by and in some ways you can have the actors doubling up. So I didn't feel competitive at all. In fact as they're a licensee I think we should work together. I think there have been events in the past that aren't a high standard, who aren't at the quality we're at and when you're a licensee you're a partner with New Line and there's a standard we have to get to and I think we should work with Ring*Con. I have to admit that why we went to August in the first place is, we were in April at Excel but that clashed with another event and so we had to move. We worked with them and thought when would be the best place to move it back? Does that answer the question at all? When you say 'school of thought' what do you think? Ian : There are some Dutch people who were at Ring*Con here who have said it's a shame they're so close, and from a personal point of view covering these events, I know the magazine, which is bi-monthly, will have a problem so you're both going to suffer if they decide they don't want to cover both, but that's just a personal thing. Louise: Oh. But you don't think they're two different things? Because they're hotel based... Ian : I think they're both very similar. I think - and this is going to come across as criticism I guess... Louise: That's fine.... Ian : ... I think you're missing the ambience because there everyone's in the hotel and it's a party and it's very hard to recreate that where, for example, I'm going to the Fellowship Feast tomorrow night and I'm somehow going to have to kill two hours between this finishing, find somewhere to change - a loo probably - and they have the advantage of having their rooms and it's a two and a half day party. Louise: Unless you don't get into the hotel and you have to go 20 minutes away and drive back and forth! Ian: I think that [the hotel being full] is a separate problem that they're having to deal with caused by their becoming very popular. But your struggle here is you've taken the Ring*Con formula and tweaked it in places, and improved it in places, but you're missing that little ingredient that makes it 'Wow! That was just a two and a half day party'. I go to Ring*Con now for reasons that have very little to do with 'Lord of the Rings'! Louise: You're a party person! Leo: It's about drinking beer! [Note: In his defence, Ian would like to point out that he didn't consume more than a pint of alcohol for the whole of Ring*Con 2002 because he's such a boring old fart, and although he got very, very drunk on Ring*Con's Friday night it was only so that he would have 'bragging rights' stories to tell about being the last person thrown out of the bar with Craig Parker :-P Let it be noted here that on the main Saturday party night, where he danced the night away until the small hours of the morning he drank nothing stronger than Coca Cola!] Ian: It's not about beer. It's about a way to hook up with friends and... Louise: But I have to say again that's not what we're about - the drinking! But we do have this sort of Fellowship of the fans and we invest a lot in our forums and we spend a lot of time with our forum members. As much as I appreciate that, again we try and appeal towards the more general public, the family rather than a big piss-up really. I went to Ring*Con and I appreciate that a lot of that goes on but you can't cater to that. You're trying to cater to a large audience. They want to come and they want to see a lot of people. Ian: So what do you see your audience as in the future? My gut feeling was, that apart from the odd panel, this has been a real event for the family but I feel that there aren't a lot of families here in the sense of family = mum and dad and 2.4 children. Is that your target audience? Do you hope to get them here next year? Louise: I would probably want to go in line with the films, which I believe are PG. Twelve and upwards really. It's not for young children. It's quite a scary film occasionally. I kind of want it to go mainstream. With this show we did a lot of advertising with 'The Evening Standard' [London's evening newspaper with a wide circulation] and Heart FM. Sci-Fi Channel. We had Sky Movies here. We did try to go more mainstream. I think there are a group of fans, die-hard, you know real convention fans who go to quite a lot of events and that's great and they're a finite number of people, they're a valuable part of your audience - they're the people that you're working with, the people you ask 'What would you like to see at an event like this?'. People said 'We want to do hobbit dancing'. What do we need to do to provide hobbit dancing?. 'We want to make our own hairy feet' so we set up 'Make your own costume' settings. 'We want to see Weta Workshop in action'. So all these things that fans asked for, we provided that environment for them. As much as it is about .. drinking and what have you - that's not our cup of tea. That audience is invaluable to us - without them we wouldn't be here. But we also want to broaden it. These actors who come to these conventions do want to meet a lot of fans in one day, do autographs, and meet as many people as possible - so we did want to widen the market for them. In the past fan events and conventions have had an image problem - you know, Trekkies and that kind of slightly geeky type of feel. What we've tried to do here the last couple of days is try and make it actually a little bit more sexy, and a little bit more available to the general public. It's a wonderful experience - it's wonderful to come to an event and see costumes and scoot to workshops and seminars, and to meet the people who made the films. That's what DVD's - they have opened that up for us and that's what we've been trying to do. Just make it a little bit more sexy and a little bit more sort of cool. Ian : As we talk, we're just over half way through so we're not at the end yet, but what's your feeling half-way through? Are you pleased with the way things have gone? Are you disappointed with anything? What will be different next year do you think? Louise: Gosh, that's a difficult question because I'm a perfectionist. Ian : Is it too early to ask? Louise: I have to say that I think the content of the event has been absolutely fabulous. I think The Tolkien Society have been amazing and they have put together these presentations and workshops and seminars and the detail has been fabulous. I'm thrilled! Every time I walk into that exhibition hall and see the whole room is jam-packed around Jed Brophy and Lawrence Makaore doing a stunt display or Sarah doing the hobbit dancing lessons or all the people around the exhibition stands.. it's amazing. To go into 'The Hall of Fire' and see people laughing their heads off at the radio play that was especially written just for this show.. I have to say I'm incredibly proud and very humble - very humbled by it - the fact that people have come from so many countries to see this show. Ian : Do you know how many different countries you've got here? Louise: We had twenty-eight different countries represented at our web site. I need to go over our ticket receipts but over twenty-eight countries requested tickets. My feeling is it's been fantastic and it's a wonderful start to a show that can only get better and bigger. Ian : You don't know what you're going to change next year if anything? I can pass on some of the comments I've heard, the trouble is you'll hear one person say one thing and then another person say dramatically the opposite, so... Louise: Well this is it! Give me some of the points! Ian : Those who've been to other events are generally much happier than those who haven't. They think it's been well organised and are happy there are not too many people. They've got what they came for. I've spoken to a few people for whom this is their first event and I've heard comments like 'It's too expensive', 'It's very poorly organised'. That seems to be based, from what I can gather, around the late opening, the confusion over tickets, only one person on the bar... But two very polarised views. What's interesting, given that you're trying to go for the mainstream, is that you appear to have won over what you would perhaps think would be the more critical section, but and it may just be a British thing... I got into a long argument with two ladies in one of the queues who were complaining about how badly organised it was and I said 'Have you actually been to an autograph signing session where there haven't been queues?' and we got into this almost stand-up row, and I thought maybe it's just a British thing... Louise: Maybe you're right. It's interesting that you think that. We've been marketing this for a long time now. What we were trying to do was offer something that we thought fans would really love, so we asked them. We thought we had. Most of them have worked: Mark and Craig being our hosts for the event. We've tried to provide a lot more content for the fans and it's funny, because of previous events, a lot of the die-hard fans were saying 'It's very, very expensive. What's different?'. And we said 'Well actually it's because of this, and this and actually we're bringing this amount of people over' so it's really interesting you say that [the fans are the ones who are happiest with the event] and I have to say it makes me smile a bit that you say that. They're our harshest critics. Ian : Do you disagree? I have to say the event is a lot better than I was expecting it to be. I didn't get a warm feeling about it. First the cancellation, then the late ticket delivery. Louise: The ticket cancellation was a postponement. We moved it. Ian : I understand, but back in Februrary it was getting an 'It's not going to happen' feel to it. And then the tickets were very late, and the wrong tickets arrived and it's turned out to be a lot better than I expected it to be. Leo : It has tremendous potential. But I think when you want to grow there are some things you probably want to change a bit. Ian : My 'gut feel' is that someone's probably lost money on the event, looking around now, looking at the low numbers. You may disagree. Admittedly, your exhibitors seem happy - the ones I've spoken to. They say they're taking good money, so.... Louise: Yeah, absolutely! Ian : .. so they're obviously happy, but I feel The Hall in particular seems to have suffered. The cast have really had to work hard because there aren't the number of bodies in the room. Louise: Yeah, but you know again it was difficult because with an event like this what we've been trying to do is more expensive. It IS more expensive. The £10 autograph event - it ain't gonna have that amount of people, or a venue like this, or have a beautiful feast. All of these things ! Ian : How did the feast go by the way? Louise : Fantastic. All the actors were singing songs. It was just fantastic. But to produce that is more expensive. We are being compared to events which are like 'I can get lots of stuff for £10'. Well yes, you can if you want to queue up and just go to an autograph table, if that's what you want to do. They both have different needs and they both fulfill things for people. As a licensee we have the exhibition, we have exclusive merchandise - exclusive just to the show. The exclusive play etc. etc. So I think we've got something to grow on. Ian : Sure! So, aims for next year? Is there anything at the back of your mind, or have I really laboured this point too much? Leo : Is there anything you couldn't get this year where you thought I want to have it next year? Something you wanted to do that in the end didn't work out for some reason? Louise: The ticket system! It was incredibly complicated! It was really complicated. When we first envisaged a hall and we wanted to do it like a theatre. It was like a theatre programme therefore we did theatre ticketing, divided into sections etc etc. I didn't think that worked effectively so we'll change that. Ian : 'The Festival Feast' - would you do that just one night or keep it every night and reduce the cost? Louise: No, we'd probably bring that down to two nights because it was fantastic last night! It worked really well. It was quite a glamorous setting and it's very intense for the actors to sit there with people all night and I think we created an environment that made them feel comfortable and it was dignified and they sat at tables and had proper adult conversations and they came away from it and had a great time. So I loved that format and I did want to go high-end on it. It is an expensive evening but I did want to produce something memorable for people that they would treasure and that doesn't come at £50 a ticket, it really doesn't. So I'd probably keep that down to two nights. Maybe we'll have a two day event next year. I don't know. I think what we need to do is just go back and we'll do an offline visitor survey, we'll talk to the visitors and we'll talk to the exhibitors and we'll sit down and debrief and then we'll work out the strategy for next August. With a first show like this you've got to learn from it. You've got to learn from it. It was really stressful, doing an individual ticketing system, and it was hand-done as well, so next year we'll just have it automated. I also think we need to change the price of the event to make it more family-oriented. At the time we didn't think much about children and next year maybe we'll look at concessions for children. Associated Reports: Fellowship Festival Sound Bites Fellowship Festival Review (Page 1)
Report Update: 31st August 10pm. The Tolkien Society have contacted me to point out that a phrase on one of the pictures, "The ceremony had a 'Tolkien Society pomp and circumstance' feel to it ", incorrectly gives the impression that the Opening Ceremony was put together by The Tolkien Society, when in fact they simply 'provided the bodies for the ceremony'. This was not the impression I meant to give, I was merely trying to give a 'snapshot' summary of the tone of the piece. I am happy however to point out that the T.S. billing given at the event was a mistake made by the organisers, and that the piece was actually conceived, written and produced by USA costume expert, Julia McGee. Although I had originally meant to say this in my review (when it's published) I should also point out here that in my view The Tolkien Society did a fantastic job at supporting this event and that their enthusiasm, support, sheer hard work, good humour and sense of fun contributed in large part to the success of this event. None of which alters my opinion that the opening ceremony was dull!
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