Couple of things to point out:-

1) We have 20 tickets to give away, so there's a better than good chance of winning a ticket!
2) You need to be able to get to Leeds (England) THIS COMING SUNDAY!!!

/Grep

Fingers crossed some people will be able to get there, it's a great prize!

I don't know, my mate's stag night is the night before so I might not be in a fit state!

Wow! What a fantastic exhibit and chance to see things up close! I'd try to win a ticket if I wasn't 'across the pond'... I hope whoever does go will post about it!

Congratulations brother Loss! We're be waiting for the photos as well as a description of the event!

Of course there are still 15 tickets available if anyone else would like to go!

A hidden camera would be usefull then

That's great loss soon we'll be adding a new gallery for your photos!

Sounds like fun!

Anyone else up for Leeds at the weekend? 15 tickets remain!

It seems there is a little confusion. There is a general seminar during the day (for 200 people), but the competition is for a private viewing of the exhibition with Peter Lyon once the museum closes to the public on that day. Anyone is welcome to attend the seminar earlier on in the day, but only winners from the planet-tolkien will be allowed to stick around for the private viewing.

Aye, lossy, that's where you VIP status becomes active I guess! Can the private viewers bring a camera then Grep?

I'm spoiled... But about time to Don't worry, I'll make sure my party takes pictures so I can share them with you...

I see Gene Wilder is back Grep? I prefer this animated one than the ravens? If they were ravens... I still seem so bare But this trip makes up for the lack of 'cover'

Sadly no, I keep having to upload the site code as we're being hacked about 5 times a week at the moment and I must have re upped my old avatar.

A lot of people are using popular sites to attempt to distribute malware and viruses and it's been a constant probelm over the last six months - last night we had a particularly serious one so I had to re up the whole site from disk!

The avatars thing is a problem that I can't fix right now but if you e-mail me your avatar to ant@planet-tolkien.com I can add them manually - I just takes me a while to get round to it.

Loss your avatar is back now!

Not really, even if I had the time. They're exploiting the fact that a good deal of the code in the site is quite old by today's standards.

I'm not in the nuddy anymore!!!! Thank you Grep, now I really spoiled !!!

Ama, you look as great as ever!!! Aren't we a pair!!!

I'll delete some of the line dancing wigglers if some people start to get migrains...

But thank yooooou Grep!!!

Edit: I PM'ed Grondy about a virus problem about two weeks ago, as viruses were getting onto my computer through here but havn't had anything come up lately... I really hope it gets sorted out soon

In about half an hour I'll be off

I'll try and tell you all about it in a new thread

Goodbye for a few hours!

(I'll keep a look out Grep)

Hey folks and I'm back!

The experience was amazing! The private tour, the pieces, meeting the man behind them all, even the other film pieces like Narnia, The Last Samurai and King Kong!

There were so many pieces which I could just rabbit on about for pages and pages, but I'll just pick out the things that I really enjoyed most ... Though unfortunately no photography was allowed at all, prior to what someone else said when I was forwarded in communications with the Royal Armouries... I did get a few shots of myself with Peter Lyon after the tour! Also (sadly) Grep couldn't attend the tour, but sent a few friends to go in his place, so it wasn't purely me and the small party I brought...

We had a curator of the Armouries and Peter's Wife accompany us throughout the tour and everynow and again taking pictures of Peter and ourselves having the tour, so we could appear somewhere in his tour galleries? ... All three contributed to the talking of some pieces, although Peter did do most of the talking, which was completely fine!

(All the Lord of the Rings pieces had a black background in their cases, and the entire place was all painted black with many lights around them all, very impressive)

The most impressive pieces I specifically remember, (it was alot to take in) were the armour and weapons of the Witch-King and Sauron, they had a complete section to themselves featuring all things assocated with them, like the actual Witch-King's Mace that was shown as the Witch-King brought it out to deal with ’owyn... It is actually just as big in person, Peter Lyon told us that Peter Jackson kept on sending him back to make the mace bigger, and once he made it bigger, PJ sent him back again to make it bigger, so it really is very big just sat their next to the Witch-King's Armour... Oh yes, the Witch-King wore armour underneath his shadowy cloak, and to just add effect and to show the build of the WK, they added the armour... There is alot which the public don't see when watching the movies, there is soo much detail that goes into making these things, no wonder they won Oscars for their brilliant work... The helm of the Witch-King was very intimidating close up, I looked into the eyes as close as the glass would allow me (without making a pig-nose out of myself) and felt a chill ... Sauron's Armour and Helm, his two maces were spectacular, so big as well, I can see that PJ had the right idea when showing a big, mean, scary Dark Lord appearance, very intimidating... Another very great piece was the over 4ft leg of Sauron, we saw the actual one that stamped on Isildur's chest and sword! It really was huge! Richard Taylor (another Weta Workshop member) was the man who did the stamping by lifting and forcing heavily on top of actor... They all got a role in the movies some way or another, like Peter Lyon played the Orc Blacksmith (himself being a Master Swordsmith anyway) in the scene with Christopher Lee making all the Uruk-hai swords ... Peter Lyon came out with all sorts of factoids in the tour, he has an amazing memory

One of my other favourites was the sword and hunting knife that Strider had before Narsil was re-forged... Peter Lyon or Peter Jackson specifically wanted it to have a rich green handle, which it did, for a time, but as it was more and more used on set and within fight scenes, the fake human and Orc blood would splash on it and the colour of the handle would slowly get darker and darker and lose the richness, though that would help with the effect of that sword actually being used all the time like in the books and become faded......

We also got to see the armour, bow and arrows that Liv Tyler/Arwen used in a few scenes that were cut out, she used them in the Helm's Deep part, but PJ thought it was best for the story to cut that bit out... ...

Now I thought that I'd seen it all when we saw all the hero swords, but Peter Lyon noticed that Sting was missing, and the curator was holding something in a green bag very tightly for dear life throughout the entire tour and he said that it wasn't missing, and that the private tour that we'd won included an opportunity to hold the actual sword Sting!!! I got knots in my stomach when I saw it so close up and I held it proud! It was so beautiful and expertly made, I really couldn't describe it! It was heavy, but all swords are anyway, and it was a normal short-sword size, it wasn't Hobbit size... So I can safely say that I held Sting, the same sword that Ian Holm, Sean Astin and Elijah Wood used in the movies and would be used for the upcoming Hobbit movies! I'm honoured

Below I'll just write a list of the majority of things I saw in the exhibit (excluding Narnia etc), which I specifically enjoyed, which is everything mostly

(Prologue)
Narsil, Elendil's Helm (slightly bent at the top just like when he got thrown against a rock wall by Sauron), Armour of Second Age Elves, Armour of Second Age Men, Elrond/Arwen's Sword (they used the same one), Gil-galad's armour and Aeglos his spear, Sauron's two maces (one for close-up shots and another smaller for stunt), armour and huge leg and helm...

I'll say a couple of Orc clothing here as I'm unsure which parts they were used, but it was so cleverly done with the 'scavenger look' of mixed materials, fur, steel, leather etc...

(Hero Weapons)
Aragorn's Ranger Sword and Anduril, hunting knife also, Legolas's Bow and Arrows, including his beautiful long knives, Gimli had about 3 axes, one for show (double headed), a throwing axe and another for all out fighting... Boromir's Sword, shield, Frodo's Sting (I held!)... The Hobbit's Swords that Strider gave them, Gandalf's Glamdring, which had two sheaths, one blue for when he was Gandalf the Grey and a white one for when he turned into Gandalf the White... His sword was very impressive, I couldn't keep my eyes of it for a while ... ’owyn's helm and sword, ’omer's Sword and Helm, King Th’oden's complete armour including sword (Bernard Hill said that that piece of armour was the most comfortable armour he's ever worn (as he played alot of theatre plays and ye olde medievil projects) as there was extra leather padding etc, it wouldn't pinch him if he moved, you don't usually see what's on the inside of costumes/armour , but it's comfortable ))

(Other Pieces)
Armour of Third Age Elves, Armour of Third Age Men, various Orc and Uruk-hai swords/armour/bows/arrows... Haldir's Sword... The two helms that Frodo and Sam wore to disguise themselves among the Orcs... Witch-King's Dagger (I dont think it was seen in the movies)

That's all I can think of at the moment and now that I've scrolled up, I seem to have rabbited on like I said I wouldn't, but enjoy my little 'n' large documentation from memory and I'm so sorry I couldn't take pictures

Enjoy your next few days reading this

Thanks Loss.

(The Witch King's dagger was seen on the extended edition DVD when he was stabbing Frodo. I noticed it when I watched it last week.)