Anyone up for a trip to Chicago?
Wizards in the Windy City
Harry Potter fans scout out sites for conference, Quidditch
December 4, 2006
BY DAVE NEWBART Staff Reporter for Chicago Sun-Times
Amy Tenbrink stared out over the football field from a skybox on the lakefront and mused, "How cool would it be to have Quidditch at Soldier Field?"
Very cool, agreed the rest in the tour group -- eight women wearing scarves and neckties and other elements of dress popular with the witches and wizards made famous in the Harry Potter book series.
Tenbrink, 30, a Denver lawyer, is the lead organizer of a weeklong Harry Potter-themed conference planned for Chicago in August 2008. Her group visited Chicago over the weekend to scope venues and hammer out details for the conference.
They expect as many as 1,500 Harry Potter fanatics from around the world to descend on Chicago like it was Diagon Alley, the bustling street known only to the wizarding community in author J.K. Rowling's fictional London.
These are the hard-core fans, who spend dozens of hours checking out fan Web sites, listening to Harry Potter podcasts, and writing or reading stories based on the book.
The fans are about 75 percent women, in stark contrast to who you see at Star Wars or Star Trek conventions, said Hallie Tibbetts, 29, a teacher from Washington.
Not for kids
But these fans also take Harry Potter seriously. Speakers include professors from schools like MIT and USC, and most of the days are eaten up by in-depth discussions of scholarly papers on the books' deeper literary and philosophical implications.
Some of the accepted papers to be presented at a conference in New Orleans in May include The Harry Potter World as Existential Inspiration for Gifties, J. K. Rowling's Narrative Turn: Harry Potter and "The War on Terror," and Loss and Grief in Harry Potter.
The conference is for "adult enthusiasts," although high school students can attend if accompanied by a paying adult.
Still, they are also looking to have fun. Thus, the planned Quidditch tournament, which will feature three simultaneous matches of what they acknowledge is a "fake" sport. That's because in the book, Harry and his pals fly around on brooms trying to score goals, avoid "bludgers" (swatted balls aimed to knock them off their brooms) and chase down the Golden Snitch -- a little ball with wings that flies about on its own. Catching it ends the match.
'It's a little weird'
In the Muggle (the word for humans in the book) version, players run around and try to throw a mini-soccer ball through a raised hula-hoop, all the while avoiding dodge balls batted at them with whiffle-ball bats.
"It's like a cross between basketball and soccer, and it's a little weird," admits Tenbrink.
However, they have not found a worthy substitute for the snitch, so they have to get someone to run around with it.
That invariably leads to football-style tackles and battles.
Final book, convention
"Everyone ends up being covered with mud and bruises and cuts and blood," Tenbrink said.
As it turns out, renting Soldier Field was beyond the group's price range, but some fields immediately next to the field could be perfect, organizers said.
The group also checked out the grand ballroom at the Hilton Chicago. They plan to hold a giant welcoming dinner similar to the opening feast at Hogwarts.
There won't be a talking "sorting hat" to determine which of four "houses" participants are assigned to (registrants are pre-sorted before arriving), but everyone will sit according to their houses at long tables, just like in the book.
Throughout the conference, members can earn points -- just like in the book -- for their respective houses by asking good questions. And, like the books, they can lose them for creating disruptions. At the end, the winning house will be feted at a brunch. Another grand feast will celebrate the end of the seven-book series -- which is supposed to have been completed by then -- as well as the likely last Harry Potter convention for this group.
Harry Potter fans scout out sites for conference, Quidditch
December 4, 2006
BY DAVE NEWBART Staff Reporter for Chicago Sun-Times
Amy Tenbrink stared out over the football field from a skybox on the lakefront and mused, "How cool would it be to have Quidditch at Soldier Field?"
Very cool, agreed the rest in the tour group -- eight women wearing scarves and neckties and other elements of dress popular with the witches and wizards made famous in the Harry Potter book series.
Tenbrink, 30, a Denver lawyer, is the lead organizer of a weeklong Harry Potter-themed conference planned for Chicago in August 2008. Her group visited Chicago over the weekend to scope venues and hammer out details for the conference.
They expect as many as 1,500 Harry Potter fanatics from around the world to descend on Chicago like it was Diagon Alley, the bustling street known only to the wizarding community in author J.K. Rowling's fictional London.
These are the hard-core fans, who spend dozens of hours checking out fan Web sites, listening to Harry Potter podcasts, and writing or reading stories based on the book.
The fans are about 75 percent women, in stark contrast to who you see at Star Wars or Star Trek conventions, said Hallie Tibbetts, 29, a teacher from Washington.
Not for kids
But these fans also take Harry Potter seriously. Speakers include professors from schools like MIT and USC, and most of the days are eaten up by in-depth discussions of scholarly papers on the books' deeper literary and philosophical implications.
Some of the accepted papers to be presented at a conference in New Orleans in May include The Harry Potter World as Existential Inspiration for Gifties, J. K. Rowling's Narrative Turn: Harry Potter and "The War on Terror," and Loss and Grief in Harry Potter.
The conference is for "adult enthusiasts," although high school students can attend if accompanied by a paying adult.
Still, they are also looking to have fun. Thus, the planned Quidditch tournament, which will feature three simultaneous matches of what they acknowledge is a "fake" sport. That's because in the book, Harry and his pals fly around on brooms trying to score goals, avoid "bludgers" (swatted balls aimed to knock them off their brooms) and chase down the Golden Snitch -- a little ball with wings that flies about on its own. Catching it ends the match.
'It's a little weird'
In the Muggle (the word for humans in the book) version, players run around and try to throw a mini-soccer ball through a raised hula-hoop, all the while avoiding dodge balls batted at them with whiffle-ball bats.
"It's like a cross between basketball and soccer, and it's a little weird," admits Tenbrink.
However, they have not found a worthy substitute for the snitch, so they have to get someone to run around with it.
That invariably leads to football-style tackles and battles.
Final book, convention
"Everyone ends up being covered with mud and bruises and cuts and blood," Tenbrink said.
As it turns out, renting Soldier Field was beyond the group's price range, but some fields immediately next to the field could be perfect, organizers said.
The group also checked out the grand ballroom at the Hilton Chicago. They plan to hold a giant welcoming dinner similar to the opening feast at Hogwarts.
There won't be a talking "sorting hat" to determine which of four "houses" participants are assigned to (registrants are pre-sorted before arriving), but everyone will sit according to their houses at long tables, just like in the book.
Throughout the conference, members can earn points -- just like in the book -- for their respective houses by asking good questions. And, like the books, they can lose them for creating disruptions. At the end, the winning house will be feted at a brunch. Another grand feast will celebrate the end of the seven-book series -- which is supposed to have been completed by then -- as well as the likely last Harry Potter convention for this group.