Thursday, 28th March 11.00am GMT

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Sunday, 24th March - Inside The One Party

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this report are those of Ian Smith, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the official fan club, its staff or any of its members.

On the pictures below, hover the mouse over a picture to see a description, or click on the picture to see a larger version With Howard Shore's "Fellowship" theme blaring out the speakers, our limousine pulled up at the kerb of The Hollywood Athletic Club, where we found a camera crew waiting to film our exit from the vehicle. Helicopters circled overhead, and with this, the glorious sunny weather and the word "Hollywood" wherever you looked, we really felt we had arrived at "The One Party" - a celebration of the oscars and the movie "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring"!

The queue to get in wound all the way round the block and it took our party about 50 minutes to get in. The crowd were determined to have a good time and the mood wasn't spoilt by the long delay, although some were worried that they were going to miss the first Oscar results - which were rumoured to be for a "Best Supporting Actor" oscar, which we expected Sir Ian McKellen to win.

Just outside the entrance a security guard did a name check against a photo id, gave us a red wrist band (party admission) and a blue wrist band (free drinks) and then we were in!

Inside the main entrance were cardboard cut-out figures from the movie, and of course nobody could resist posing for a photograph with the hobbits or Gandalf. We then queued to receive our "Goody Baggins" which contained goods worth significantly more than the cost of admission to the party.

The "Goody Baggins" included a Weta medallion, a hardcopy book "The Visual Companion" by Jude Fisher, a Gandalf starter deck for the new Decipher trading card game "The Mines of Moria", a very nice "Lord of the Rings" calendar, and some information on Weta products, all presented in a rather unique "Lord of the Rings" bag. Fan club members had an extra gift - four free raffle tickets, which seemed to be lucky for us as most of us won something in the raffle - everything from soundtrack albums, t-shirts or (in my case) a Weta sculpture of Boromir.

Once inside there were 3 main rooms: "The Mines of Moria", which contained the raffle prizes and auction items; the dance/pool table area and the main screening area. Food (hors d'oevres) was served in the corridors connecting the three rooms which also housed the "Prancing Pony" bar.

The only complaint I have about the layout (which generally worked very well) was the inclusion of a pool table on the dance floor, which meant that the two people who used this for most of the night were able to monopolise a large area of the dance-floor, which party goers could otherwise have used instead of being forced to spill over into the already-crowded corridor. In this main corridor were two large glass bowls containing free Decipher booster packs for their trading card games - both the original "Fellowship of the Ring" game and the new "Mines of Moria" game. It was quite amusing watching others who, like myself, initially took just one pack, then seeing how many there were did a quick look around and grabbed a couple more. Lobelia Sackville-Baggins is alive and well and living in all of us!

Also in the corridor was a large poster displaying the names and photo's of fan club members who couldn't attend the party celebrations but wanted to be a part of it. She-Elf had the idea of collecting the photo's of absent members and making the poster and did a fantastic job on it, even if the airline company she used to travel to the event tried to crease it up for her. Continued on next page....

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