Lord of the Rings Convention by Lori Dungey
Last year in October I attended my fifth Lord of The Rings Convention in Bonn, Germany. I played the part of Mrs. Bracegirdle in the first film – cut from the cinema film but returned in the Director’s cut. My scene was with Sir Ian Holmes. He said, “My, Mrs. Bracegirdle haven’t you been busy?” My response consisted of a lot of head bobbing, holding a small child and being surrounded by my adorable Hobbit children.
Every year about 4,000 people gather from all over Europe and England, from Friday to Sunday night, to celebrate everything that is LOTR. It’s a mad mixture of sword craft lectures, stage fighting workshops, lectures on the Elvyn language (yes, there is an Elvyn language), Celtic history, costume parades, talent competitions, Tolkien discussions etc… Many of the “fans” who attend wear costumes of their favourite character or “thing” for 3 days. One year a gal came as the Party Tree, complete with dancing Hobbits and fairy lights. She couldn’t sit and had to lie down on the back seat of a car to get to the convention. There’s more Gandolph’s, Treebeard’s, Lady of Lothlorien’s, Legolas’, and Frodo’s then you could shake a stick at. Many who attend spend countless hours embroidering dresses and hammering out armor. I love these 2 girls who come every year as the Riders of Rohan. They’re decked out in armor and even have horses. Two child-size horses, on wheels and they’ve got armor as well. They have the movie sound track in a ghetto blaster tucked under one of the horses. The rousing soundtrack plays as they get pulled up and down the hallways of Gondor.
Two years ago, with the decline in interest of LOTR (It’s been 10 years!) they incorporated actors from Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean. Last year they included Twilight actors, so a very large number of young girls attended.
I’m part of the Kiwi contingent that is there every year, along with the real international stars. During the day, my job is to chat and mingle with the “fans”, turn up for the autograph signings, picture posing and teach a couple of improvisation workshops. I do one solo 50-minute slot for about 1,500 “fans” where I present a short film that I’ve made during the year. It always features some silly adventure of Mrs. Bracegirdle. Hysterical thing is I’m actually wearing a Heidi outfit I got for some corporate gig, but no one seems to care.
Then in the evenings, the Kiwis do some madcap improv. We try to incorporate themes from the LOTR, as well as Twilight and Harry Potter as well as getting some of the real “stars” involved. They love it because they have a great time and they end up looking adorable. In one scene we recreated a date in the style of fairy tale characters with a young girl we plucked from the audience. We brought up another “volunteer” from the audience who turned out to be the heart throb star from an American TV Vampire show called Blood Ties. The “fans” went mad. Think of 3,000 screaming girls and you’d be about right.
We also used a couple of German actors who voiced Twilight. It’s a huge industry in Germany and all TV shows and movies are dubbed into German. They’re very popular and the audience went ballistic when we did this crazy scene where each Kiwi actor was assigned an “interpreter”. Their job was to interpret into German every line and noise made by the Kiwis. They stood as close as they could and the scene got faster and louder and everyone was working as hard as they could to keep up with everyone else. Very enjoyable mayhem.
Then it’s all over. That is, until the next year, if you’re fortunate enough to get an invite back. I’m happy to report I’ve got my invite for 2010 so I’m getting ready for another Bracegirdle production.