Allen County Public Library Harry Potter Release Party!

Check out what the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne Indiana is doing this evening for the release of the final Harry Potter book! There will be festivities from 9pm until midnight, at which time the new release can be checked out since it is officially released on 7/20. It is going to be amazing, and I plan to take pictures and hopefully some videos and I will be posting them here.

This is taken from the 7/16 article by the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel and the full article can be found here.

Downtown library
Potter party central this Friday will be at the new downtown library, 900 Library Plaza. They are gearing up for a gathering of 5,000 fans, many of whom will be dressed as characters in the books.

The fun begins with a pre-event concert and activities outside on the Library Plaza. Family-friendly music will be provided by the Kid Kazooey and the Ballroom Roustabouts.

“We wanted something silly and strange and weird, and I think he fits the bill,” said Deb Noggle, children’s librarian at the Tecumseh branch and lead organizer of the night’s events.

Other activities at the pre-party include quaffle-throwing practice (a ball thrown through a hoop to score a goal in wizarding’s game of Quidditch), crawling through a giant spider web, and trading new or shiny objects with gypsies.

At 9 p.m., the main library – which will close for regular business at 6 p.m. Friday – will reopen. Partygoers stepping through the doors will find themselves in the Harry Potter books’ Diagon Alley, the wizard shopping district in London.

There, visitors can try 18 activities, including:

♦Making a Weasley family clock.

♦Visiting Ollivander’s wand shop.

♦Stocking up at Honeyduke’s Sweet Shoppe.

♦Learning the future at Trelawney’s Divinations and Fortune Telling.

♦Watching magician Jared Mason’s magic show.

♦Daring to go through the Restricted (Book) Section maze.

♦Getting a lightning bolt tattoo.

♦Having the U.S. Postal Service stamp an owl card with a special “Harry Potter” mail cancellation.

Noggle said the 18 stations will be three times the number of activities offered at the library’s last big Potter Party, which was held at the Georgetown branch for the 2005 release of Book 6, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”

People also can enter a lottery to be among the lucky fans to check out one of the Allen County Public Library’s approximately 250 copies of the new Harry Potter book, Noggle said. The Bookmark bookstore also will be there selling the book at midnight.

Noggle said fans can get a jump on deciding what activities they want to try Friday night by donating an article of clothing to S.P.E.W. (Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare) barrels set out now through Friday at library branch locations. In the books, Harry’s friend and classmate Hermione Granger started S.P.E.W. to get better treatment and freedom for house elves.

Donated clothing will be given to local organizations that provide free clothing to needy people in Fort Wayne, Noggle said.

Each person who donates an item of clothing will receive an S.P.E.W. button and a library version of The Daily Prophet, the wizard newspaper, Noggle said. The newspaper will provide information about the 18 activities at Friday’ night’s party and where each activity will take place in the main library.

About 100 library staffers will be on hand to help everything go smoothly, Noggle said. Book characters, such as Professor Minerva McGonagall, Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody, Rubeus Hagrid and Professor Severus Snape, also will wander the building to mingle with fans.

The event is paid for by donations from the Friends of the Library organization and the Allen County Public Library Foundation, Noggle said.