Today marked the Harry Potter Alliance‘s 8th birthday! To celebrate, they hosted a live stream birthday party to coincide with the last hours of their EqualityFTW (For The Win) fundraiser, which concludes Saturday night at midnight. From 6pm to 10pm Eastern, the HPA hosted their live stream, then from 10pm to 12am Eastern, LeakyCon hosted another live stream to make ALL THE ANNOUNCEMENTS about LeakyCon 2014 in Orlando. I am so unbelievably excited for LeakyCon next year! Here is a run down of all the things that were revealed tonight:
Place: The Orange County Convention Center (the OCCC) in Orlando, Florida. It should be easy to remember; it’s only one more C than the Oregon Convention Center in Portland! It is three short, easily navigable miles from the Harry Potter theme park.
Date: July 30th through August 3rd. We will be celebrating not only Harry Potter’s birthday, July 31st, while we are there, but we will also be celebrating Esther Earl Day on August 3rd!
Registration: Opens October 19th at 8pm GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), which translates to 3pm Eastern, 2pm Central, 1pm Mountain, and 12pm Pacific. Go to LeakyCon.com to register when registration opens.
Prices: “Early bird” prices include: $100 for Lit track only, $150 for General registration, $250 for Lit track plus general registration, and $350 for Rockstar registration. Even though LeakyCon 2014 will be the biggest conference ever, this does not mean that there will be more Rockstar passes available. I can almost guarantee that they will sell out in less than an hour. Rockstar passes sold out for Portland 2013 in 45 minutes and for London 2013 in 11 minutes. Prices will increase as time goes on.
Perks: Because Rockstar passes sold out so quickly for this year’s two conferences, LeakyCon staff decided to release twenty Rockstar passes early through the EqualityFTW fundraiser during the live stream. They are (or were probably by the time I publish this) $700. Yes, this is twice as much. However, those who bought a Rockstar pass tonight during the live stream were able to guarantee that they get one, which those who wait for the main registration to open are not able to guarantee. In fact, by the time the live stream ended, I think less than half an hour after these “early” Rockstar tickets were announced, 15 of the 20 were already purchased.
Other perks during the live stream event included Portkey passes, which when used will allow attendees to jump to the front of any LeakyCon line that the may be waiting in, and autograph “witchbands”, which are a pack of wristbands that guarantee you signatures for every special guest signing. The Portkey passes were sold at a price of five for $75, and out of the 50 available, these sold out in less than 17 minutes during the live stream. Out of 30 available at $100 each, the “witchbands” also sold out during the live stream.
Because of all these perks that were released during the LeakyCon Announcement live stream, the EqualityFTW fundraiser total went from over $120,000 to $140,000. In just over two hours, THIS FANDOM RAISED OVER $20,000. How awesome is that?
Parks: Those who attended LeakyCon 2011 (my very first LeakyCon), you might remember “Open at the Close“, which was the event that allowed only LeakyCon attendees into the Harry Potter theme park after regular hours. It was dark, sure, but it was awesome! It is with boundless excitement that I can say “Open at the Close” is all but confirmed for LeakyCon 2014! It’ll be on Wednesday, the first day of the conference, and it will involve purchasing a separate ticket apart from the regular registration. Further details are forthcoming.
Please continue checking LeakyCon.com for updates, follow LeakyCon on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc, or sign up for email updates on their website as well. You can also watch the full live stream (recorded stream?) below. What a night!
(Also this post is an important one to me. FictionRow.com now has 100 posts. Hooray!)
