August 5, 2005

Advance Registration Closed

Advance registration is now closed. The on-line booking form has been removed.

It is still possible to attend; to do so you should turn up at Aston University Main Building on Thursday, August 11, between 10am and 5pm.

Day tickets will be available for the Friday, Saturday and Sunday; they are not available for the Thursday or Monday. To book a day ticket turn up at Aston University Main Building on the day you wish to attend between 9am and 10:30am.

The on-the-door rates are shown here.

June, 2005

Progress Report 5

PR 5 has been mailed and everyone who has booked should now have received their copy. If anyone who is expecting it (other than those who have registered in the last few days) hasn't received it please contact the Booking Officer [pop up window]. There is a lot of critical information in PR 5, without it you stand a good chance of not getting to the event!

Progress Reports

How to Get There

Some suplementary information about how to navigate the UK railway network, and tips on getting from the major UK airports to Birmingham. Plus some useful web sites on travel within the UK and Europe.

How to Get There

Additional Guests

Following the announcement last month about John Howe, we now have some text and a picture.

John Garth and Tim Kirk have also joined the Guest List.

Guests

Coach Tours

Further information about the Oxford and Birmingham coach tours.

Coach Tours

May, 2005

Timetable Information

We are starting to firm up aspects of the timetable. While the timetable won't be fixed until very close to the start of the Conference, indeed it will be changing even during it, a number of things are more fixed than flexible. We are listing these together with other timetable information to try and help people with their plans as much as possible.

Be warned, however, that we cannot guarantee that this information won't change, and we will not be responsible for any affects to anybody's plans if it does.

Timetable information

Coach Tours

These have proved extremely popular.

The Oxford Trip has now expanded to two coaches and is approaching capacity again. We won't be expanding it to three coaches because we don't have the people to actually manage it all in Oxford. For those who miss out we would recommend a trip to Oxonmoot (a Tolkien Society event in Oxford in September) one year.

Further information about Oxonmoot.

The Birmingham Tour is now on a waiting list. We won't be getting a further coach for it because it is guided by Bob Blackham, a local expert on Birmingham and Tolkien, and there is only one of him! However, as a preparation for the tour Bob is giving a two hour presentation on "Tolkien's Birmingham". This will be equally applicable to those who are going and those who are not. Bob has also produced a book on Tolkien's Birmingham; it is in the process of being published at the moment and I anticipate that it will be available for sale at the Convention.

We are attempting to arrange a coach large enough to take everybody including the current waiting list, but this is proving to be an interesting challenge! Ancient Chinese Curse: May you live in interesting times…

Guests

John Howe has indicated that he will be joining us as a guest, subject to work commitments. Unfortunately, we are a little short of a picture and text to put on the guests' web page at the moment…

Guests

Registrations

We have smashed through our hoped for figure of 500 registrations. In fact that figure was decimated around the beginning of April and at the beginning of May we are rapidly approaching 600 registrations! Conservative estimates put the final figure around 650, but we wouldn't be too surprised if it wasn't higher.

Lots of people, does that mean that there will be lots of people who can't participate because everything is full?

No it doesn't; we chose Aston (partly) because it has lots of scope for expansion; it has a good number of good sized rooms. We have already increased the number of rooms that we are hiring because of the increased numbers. We will do so again if necessary.

Close of Advance Registration

The current rates will be held until the end of advance registration. Accommodation booking will close on 15 July. Event booking will close on 5 August.

Any bookings received after those dates will not be processed. Any bookings received after the close of event booking will not be acknowledged as we will be too busy dealing with final preparation for the event itself.

Current rates

On-the-Door Tickets

We will be selling on-the-door tickets for the entire event and individual days: Friday, Saturday & Sunday. We will not be selling day tickets for Thursday or Monday.

On-the-door rates

Art Show

The Art Show is proving very popular with artists. A number of well known Tolkien inspired artists have signed up to display their work, including our guest artists.

Because of this enthusiasm the work displayed in the Art Show will be rotated, which means that it will be a different Art Show every day.

Art show

Dealers' Room

The Dealers' Room is also filling up nicely. There are some tables left, but interest has suddenly been very high and these are expected to be dwindling rapidly.

In fact, the interest has been such that tables are being rationed and the mix of dealers is being monitored closely.

Dealers' Room

April, 2005

Update to the registration and accommodation pages

New registration and accommodation rates have been published; these apply from 1 April 2005 until 31 July 2005. The Adult registration rate has risen by £10.00; Junior and Supporting rates have risen by £5.00. The Accommodation rates have been held. The US $ and Euro rates have been adjusted to account for currency fluctuations.

Registration page.

Accommodation page.

2005 rates page.

Tolkien 2005 Merchandise

Tolkien 2005 merchandise is now available through Tolkien Society trading Ltd.

Further details on the Merchandise page. On-line ordering available shortly.

Bulk orders available at reduced prices to Participating Societies. Please contact Tolkien Society Trading Ltd. [popup window] for details.

Other News

We are in the process of translating the web site into French; my thanks to Jean Chausse for offering to help.

The Call for Papers and the Participation Programme are now closed, though those who have already offered contributions but haven't provided us with all the details still have space allocated to them. We are operating a waiting list as the daytime programme is getting very full. The mammoth task of timetabling is now underway. However, because of the very full programme it is unlikely that a usable version of the timetable will be available prior to the event.

Registration numbers are strong. It looks very likely that we will exceed our target attendance figures. However, because we have factored in sufficient capacity there should be ample space for every attendee. With the very full programme there will be lots to choose from.

Because of the strong registration numbers very soon new registrations will not receive a copy of Progress Report 1 in the post. It is possible that this may extend to the other Progress Reports later on. However, all those who this affects will be able to collect the Progress Reports that they are missing when the register at the event itself. Doing it this way enables us to print the right number of the Progress Reports that ran out and thus not waste your money! The information in the early Progress Reports has now been mostly superceded, so nobody will be missing crucial information.

January, 2005

Update to the Progress Report page

Brief details of the recently published PR 4.

Progress Reports page.

December, 2004

Spanish translation added

Practically the whole of the Tolkien 2005 web site is now available in Spanish. The translation has been done by the Mexican Tolkien Society [Sociedad Tolkiendili de México]. Thanks to Fernando Careaga-Sánchez for suggesting and offering to take on this project.

The URL of the Spanish translation is www.tolkiensociety.org/2005/spanish.

If you wish to help the Tolkien 2005 web site by translating it into further languages then please get in touch with the Web Master [pop up window].

Web site update

Further details about the venue including brief information about the proposed coach trips is now on the site. We also have some vacant positions on the Tolkien 2005 committee. Plus there is an appeal for volunteers to help with the daily running of Tolkien 2005.

There is a page about the Tolkien 2005 Committee; who we are, what we look like (so you know who to look out for), what we do and what we are responsible for. Not everyone has a picture there yet, nor is there text for everyone either, but I'm working on it!

Each page now has links at the top to the other language options. A few pages are not available in Spanish; these are the historical pages and the on-line registration system.

New dealers' rates have been agreed. New US dollar and Euro rates have also been set; these come into effect from December 25. The change is due to variations in the exchange rates; for further details please see the Non-UK Rates Statement.

New Guests Announced

Some new guests have been added to the Guests page. The latest guests to be confirmed are Rhona Beare and Patrick Curry.

October 12, 2004

New Guests Announced

Some new guests have been added to the Guests page. The latest guest to be confirmed is Colin Duriez.

Site & Programme Information

Additional information about where Tolkien 2005 is being held has been added to the web site.

The Programme is shaping up well. We are well over half-full with offers of papers, lectures, panels, slide-shows and entertainments.

There are new co-ordinators for Events and Entertainments [pop up window].

We now have 20 different societies in the Participation Programme (including the Tolkien Society). This promises to provide a wide range of different approaches to Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings.

Dealers' Rates

The Dealers' rates have been revised and presented in an easier to use way.

August 5, 2004

Web site updated with additional information

Updated information on Guests, including more guest photographs. Additional information on the Progress Reports; PR3 has been sent out to registered attendees.

You will probably also notice the Nazgûl and Ring device in the top right corner of each page. This is part of the new Tolkien 2005 logo.

We also have a new Publicity Officer [pop up window].

June 9, 2004

On-Line Bookings

The on-line booking form is now working again after we received updated information from our web hosting company.

March 27, 2004

Web site updated with additional information

New sections for Latest News, FAQ, Programme and Progress Reports. New Call for Papers page added.

New registration rates announced

The rates for Registration and Accommodation are changing as from April 1, 2004. The new rates will be valid until March 31, 2005. Details on the 2004 Registration and Accommodation Rates. The 2003 rates will be available to anybody who books at EasterCon 2004.

March 24, 2004

New guests confirmed

See the Guests page fur further details.

Ops Co-ordinator required

Our Ops Co-ordinator has unfortunately had to resign due to the need to devote time to his paid job. Consequently we need a replacement. If you would like further information please contact the Chairman [pop up window].