Last installment of ‘Harry Potter’ saga draws thousands to local theaters
Matt Weir / The Collegian
True to their passion, Harry Potter fans turned out in the thousands for the midnight premiere of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, Part I.”
The last chapter of the Harry Potter saga premiered last night in theaters, much to the excitement of local Harry fans.
The first part of the latest ‘Potter’ installment drew more than 1,000 people to Edwards 21 Cinemas for the premiere.
“Nine theaters are sold out in the main building,” Edwards theater employee Harry Xiong said, who worked at the midnight premiere at the IMAX location. “We also have a 3 a.m. showing, which is expected to draw a lot of people too.”
Harry Potter fans that can only be described as hard-core dressed up for the event, donning capes, witch hats and wands.
“I’ve been to four Harry Potter premieres, and this will be my fifth one,” Tavis Nelson, 20, an avid fan said. “I started reading the books two or three years ago and I’ve been a hard-core fan since then.”
Nelson added that other avid Harry Potter fans like him engaged in wand fights at last years’ premiere of “Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince.”
“There were about 15 people who staged a wand fight at the last premiere,” he said. “There was one in the theater, where five or six people had their wands out and created a giant spectacle. It was really cool to hear all the cheers of other fans during the fight.”
Businesses surrounding the theater prepared to accommodate the large number of audience members attending the 12 a.m. showing. Borders, a bookstore and coffee shop located in close proximity to Edwards, set up a table directly outside the theater to sell hot chocolate and Harry Potter merchandise.
“We expect it to be about as crazy as the [Twilight] Eclipse premiere,” Andrew Ornelas, a Borders employee, said. “The only difference is for Harry Potter, you get a little bit of everyone. For Twilight, there were more teens and moms.”
Despite the discrepancies between Twilight and Harry Potter audiences, restaurants around the theater know how to cater to audiences of any kind during large movie premieres.
Subway, one of the newest restaurants around Edwards, pushed back business hours for Twilight fans during its June 30 premiere this summer.
“We’ve only been open since March, so we’ve only seen one big opening night [at Edwards] so far,” Jaz Sanghera, a Subway employee said. “We’re expecting a lot of business tonight.”
A few long-time Potter fans camped out in front of the theater for hours leading up to the premiere.
“We have people outside the theater right now,” Jamie Bertram, associate manager of Edwards said in a phone interview yesterday afternoon. “There are about 15 to 20 people outside that I can see.”
Such long-time fans spent the time socializing with friends outside the theater while they waited for the movie to start.
“I’m really excited about this movie in particular,” Phillip Ocheltree, a local Potter fan, said. “This [the seventh book] was the only book in the series that made me cry.”
Ocheltree and his friends, who all graduated from local high schools, went to midnight movie premieres together in high school and came back to do it again as adults.
“This is the first Harry Potter premiere that we’ve all been to together,” Ocheltree said. “It’s my first premiere as well.”
The movie attracted quite a few fans at United Artists Theater as well. While it didn’t match the numbers that Edwards attracted, it did attract Harry Potter fans just as dedicated as the ones camped out outside Edwards all day.
“We’ve had some really dedicated fans outside since 10 a.m. this morning,” said See Vang, associate manager of United Artists, said. “We’ve had more fans turn out for Harry Potter than we did for the Twilight Eclipse premiere this summer.”
Younger fans outside Edwards, while new fans of the ‘Potter’ series, proved to be just as enthusiastic about the new film as older fans.
“The only Harry Potter premiere I’ve been to was Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince last year,” Krista Mortino, a high school senior, said. “My friends and I are all Harry Potter freaks. We love Harry.”