My Ring*Con Diary - Day 1

Ring*Con 2006

10.11. – 12.11.2006 Fulda, Esperantos

Friday, 10 November 2006

We arrived in Fulda at 7:30 a.m.. Way too early to get into the hotel, so we went into a café for about three hours and then were looking for our hotel. (We weren’t in the Esperantos but the Holiday Inn which wasn’t that far away.)

The doors opened at 12 o’clock. We got our tickets/wristbands and looked around for a bit. We went onto the first floor and there Craig and Mark were almost running into me...so, it was my first encounter with them on that day.

About an hour later we went to see our first lecture about “Tolkien’s years at Exeter College (1911-1915). Early possible sources for his mythology.”. It was held by Marcel Buelles one of the founders of the German Tolkien Society (http://www.tolkiengesellschaft.de/). The lecture was very interesting and sometimes funny too.

After that we saw our first panel at 2 p.m.. It was the panel of Bruce Spence (or Bruce 1), Mouth of Sauron. Unfortunately there hadn’t been a lot people who asked him questions. Me too because I didn’t know anything about him. He looked a bit lost at some times but he did a very good job.

As the panel was over we did a little break, picked up our suitcases from the car and put it into the cloakroom. We had a nice coffee and I was waking up some more. (I was so tired because I only had 2.5 hours of sleep the night before.)

We went back into the main hall (Valinor) to see the panel of Lori Dungey, Mrs. Bracegirdle. She was funny as hell. She told us about her filming and told us in a very sad voice that she had never been to Hobbiton. Her takes were taken in a studio. “The scenery was so good. I could almost smell the trees.” Lori said. After the filming she did a “Hobbiton Tour” and made everyone wear Hobbit ears. She did a power point presentation with those piccies. She was at the party tree with some people from this tour and, of course, they wore Hobbit ears and little party hats...lol...I’m sure she could make you wear everything she wants.

On several pictures she was lying and did a little nap...well, she’s a Hobbit :-D

I also liked to see her “Breakdancing”. She just lay on the floor and paddled with her feet in the air. Oh dear, we were rolling on the floor of laughing.

She was just WOW. A wonderful woman to listen to for hours.

After the panel we had one hour to take a break and then attended to the lecuture “Boromir’s a wimp! Why the son of Lord Denethor really gets on everyone’s nerves.” It was, again, held by Marcel Buelles. Oh dear, we had to laugh so much. There were two “Boromirs” in the lecture as well and they weren’t that pleased with it but at some points had to laugh too. Marcel always emphasised that he likes Boromir too but you know, you can interpret in a movie or book so much ;-)

Now two quotes from this lecutre:

*acting as Boromir with a little-angry-child-voice*: "Well, fine... I'm gonna go home!"
About Elronds council: "You know... the coolest guys in whole middle-earth are sitting around: Glorfindel with his golden glory shine, Elrond-I-was-there-3000-years-ago, Erestor who has learned nearly every book by heart, Gandalf the very wise council man, Aragorn -hey, you know, ARAGON! Futur-King, heir of Elendil, boss of Gondor and Anor, big broken sword... and... well... Boromir..."

During the Closing Ceremony on Sunday he said: "Well, I've had this talk about 'Boromir is a wimp'... thanks to the two Boromirs in there for not slaying me." ... lol...

The lecuture took about one hour and then the official Opening Ceremony started.

Marc B. Lee was the Master of Ceremonies as always and he, again, did a very good job. This guy is really cool.

At the end of the Opening he introduced every actor and actress to us as well as the holders of lectures, workshops and so on.

Since Marc B. Lee had troubles pronouncing German names, Marcel Buelles had to do it for him. When it came to the actors he took over the job again ;-)

The following actors were there:

Shane Rangi – Haradrim

Sarah McLeod – Rosie Cotton/Gamgee

Bruce Spence – Mouth of Sauron

Lori Dungey – Mrs Bracegirdle

Bruce Hopkins – Gamling

Sean Astin – Samwise Gamgee

Miranda Otto – Eowyn

Craig Parker – Haldir

Mark Ferguson – Gil-Galad

The audience screamed the hell out of them, esp. when Mark, Craig and Miranda came on stage.

When Sean came on stage we screamed so much too and we did standing ovations for him. I had so much goosebumps everywhere. It was great to see them in real, even though we had been several metres away from the stage but it was a great feeling.

The next panel after the Opening was with Sean. Some also called him Mr. Longspeaker. I really liked his answers but sometimes they were very very very long. So to speak he started at the very first beginning of the topic of the question and explained how he got into the situation what the question was about...lol...Therefore not many people could ask questions but it was great.

Well, then the one of the highlights came on stage. Now it was time for the panel of Craig and Mark which was funny as hell. I had tears in my eyes of laughing :-) They first answered some questions and then made their show.

The first story they were telling was about “Gollum's quest for the passport”. Mark’s comment on this: "And all of you who don't know about this passport-thing ... we won't tell you. Google: Mark Ferguson passport." (Btw, you should try it...it really works...lmao...poor guy.)

To tell the story each had to say one word, so you can guess that we laughed our asses off *grin* I again had tears in my eyes. They work really well together.

During the panel they also did a story with the audience. That means we had to do the sounds and they were telling the story. For example: When Mark (Derek in this case) said to Craig (Barbara) that it looks like there’s a thunder coming we had to trample with our feet. Or another one: When Derek opened the door of the car for Barbara (which was a running gag through the whole Con. Mark only had to say “Barbara” and everyone was laughing so hard.) we did a squeaky sound and so on.

Oh dear, both of them were so FANTASTIC, GREAT, BRILLIANT, FUNNY, INCREDIBLE....just WOW...

When the panel was over it was already late and please remember, I only had 2.5 hours sleep. At 10 p.m. there was a band called Amber Rabenflug playing in the party zone. They were good from that what I recognised ;-)

After them at 11:30 p.m. Shelmish were playing. It’s a band who makes medieval music. They are really great. But I couldn’t enjoy it that much because I was soooo damn tired. After they finished their concert at about 1 a.m., we went back to our hotel and fell in our beds.....

To be continued... (hehe, I always wanted to write that :-) )

P.S. I'll upload some pictures later and will post the link then.