Just wondering if anyone else is going to be in attendance at the J.K. Rowling reading at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, NY, USA.

For those of you that are reading this and going "huh ?", JKR is doing a reading in New York on August 1st and 2nd with Stephen King and one other author. There are tickets still available, but the only ones left are a little pricey. It think there are only $80.00 and $104.00 tickets left, along with some extremely expensive family packs that go for about $1000.00.

So, who's going? Are you flying? Are you staying overnight? Anyone traveling from overseas to see this?

I know this is a late reply but i wish i could of gone.
[Mod Edit] Hi, please elaborate your post beyond a single line of text, thanks.

I found this article when I was looking on yahoo, but then I lost it, so I found it on cnn.com

It just talks about how a couple authors don't want Rowling to kill of Harry, and the writer is worried that it actually might happen based on her wording. Thought you might want to check it out...

Not gonna get into this debate if Harry is gonna die or not but nice Article. I wish I could've of gone, 3 best authors in the world and I missed it, is pricey but worth it. Rather see Dan and Emma and Rupert live though.

Wow, Chris, sure sounds like it, huh? Thanks for the link!

This is probably not the place to discuss if I'd want Harry to go or not, so I'll just say this - I'm finding it hard to imagine something alse happening after reading this, because she talked about death as though, in Irving's words, it had 'already happened'. Hmm, what the media of the world wouldn't do to get their hands on Jo's 'casualty list'!

Edit-> Gotta mention this:



Now there I have to say I agree. I'd much rather she had Harry die in an honourable way, than have wannabe authors spoil her world with mutated sentiments. Fanfics are great, cause they were ever only fanfics, but I'd just die if some stranger came and tried to make a quick buck out of Harry Potter. Gah! Revolting idea!

Sadly no, but I really wish I could've. I keep getting Stephen King confused with Larry King (a guy on CNN), and I hoped that J.K. would've been on his show tonight.
Yes, it would really suck if that happened especially since no one really has J.K.'s style of writing, and it would not be the same without her name on the cover....

Hey All,

I went to the reading tonight! It was just Great!

I flew out from Seattle yesterday and am staying in NY for just 2 nights so I can see this thing!

All three of the authors are my favorites so I felt very lucky to have heard about it in time to get good tickets. 9th row center!

They all looked great and it was great listening to them read their stories. As you may know, JKR read the scenes when Dumbledore went to the orphanage to tell Tom Riddle that he was invited to go to Hogwarts. After she finished, she answered a few questions and then Stephen King and John Irving came out again and they all answered a few questions. It was great. No Real big revelations except someone asked what Hermione would see if she looked in the mirror of erised and she said that "right now" (her emphasis) she would probably see Herself and Harry and Ron safe and sound, but she would also probably see herself wrapped closely around someone, we could probably guess who.

Afterward I was around the corner, near the back stage door (didn't even know it) talking to my husband on my cell phone and suddenly Jo came out the door surrounded by a group of people. There were too many people and they were going too fast for me to say anything but a few minutes later Stephen King and John Irving came out also and I got to shake their hands. Major Hilight for me, let me tell you!

Jo looked Beautiful. She had on Great shoes with snakes on them.

I saw Emerson from Mugglenet and Melissa from Leaky Cauldron. I wish I had seen Matthew from Veritaserum as I would have liked to shake his hand. I appreciate this website of his.

Ok I'm off to New York in the morning... I would just die if I got to actually meet her, but anything is possible, right?

Hope it's as good as everyone is saying it is! I'll let you guys know what I think when I return!

I read the article yesterday morning and when I did I had to post a link to it on VTM so that other VTM fans could see that even celebrities (and competing authors) are asking JKR not to kill Harry in Book 7. I posted it in a different thread of course; it's on the thread that asks the question "Who out of the trio will die in the end?" It can be found HERE.

I don't really know what to make of King's and Irving's pleas and what effect (if any at all) they had on JKR. I gathered from the article that she had already resolved the matter and that nothing that any two celebrity authors said to her (regardless of fame or affluence) was going to change that. I didn't really expect that it would. It just seemed to me that she kind-of laughed the matter off as inconsequential when there are millions of people around the globe who are hoping that Harry will pull through this thing. Not everyone thinks he'll make it, but I'm quite certain that the majority of HP fandom are pulling for the guy.

I hope he makes it.

About the actual trip to New York, I couldn't pull away from work to go see the reading; it would have been interesting to see Steven King again. I grew up in Bangor, Maine and I used to play little league baseball with his son, Owen. It was cool because SK would get us all pizza after the games sometimes. He would also let kids go through his house on Halloween... talk about scary! Owen told me once that his house was like that all year round. What a way to grow up... A life-size statue of CUJO greeting you at the door when you get home from school... OOPS!!! Sorry...

Anyway, that's all for now.

Zophael

Alright guys... what a trip!

It was absolutely worth the time off from work, the three hour drive, and the money for the tickets. 10 rows back, I could see and hear everything perfectly. All three of them were amazing.

K... now for the sad part


JKR confirmed... and I quote... that "Dumbledore is dead and he is not coming back".

Ok... heart... crushed

But it was absolutely amazing and I wouldn't have traded the experience for the world, even with the one hour wait in 109 degree heat. Yes, 109. No, I'm not kidding. Yes, I was soaked through my maroon and gold shirt by the time I got in

Wow, Lily! That sounds incredible! What I wouldn't give to have been there! (You don't want to know what I'd give, you'd think I was touched in the head... )

She confirmed Dumbledore's dead, eh? Interesting - it was such a hot topic. Maybe the fact that she has revealed it shows that she is already starting to consider the mood and hype preceding the final release. She wouldn't want people reading the last book waiting for something like that to happen that definitely won't. She's giving everyone time to start thinking in a new direction. So it begins...

Oh man! I love news - I love watching history happen, the hype of it, but Harry-hype is unlike any other form of excitement I've ever experienced! I'm already starting to quiver with anticipation...

I demand a release date! Now!

haha Cap. Yeah, it was incredible. I am so glad that I went.

Also (I forgot to mention this earlier), she made a little comment at the end that has me thinking Sirius is coming back.

All three authors were asked "If you could go to dinner with 5 of your characters, who would you choose to invite?". JKR immediately said Hermione, Ron and Harry. Then she said "oh, it's hard for me, because I know who's actually dead" . Does anyone else see why this is so significant? Actually dead? Ok... well, the only ones that have died are Dumbledore (who she confirmed last night is truly dead and not coming back), Harry's parents (obviously dead), Cedric (again, obviously dead), and... dunt-duh-duh-dunnnnnn: Sirius!

Guys... he's alive... I know it !

Lily, that is awesome news! Wow, Sirius alive... it is wonderful that you were there to hear that! I wonder how long it would have taken to filter down the VTM community and how distorted her exact words would have been before it reached us. Well done on retrieving that startling piece of intelligence ; soon we'll be able to challenge the Klingons for interstellar domination . Mwahaha... OOPS! Wrong website.

J/K,

Zophael

Sounded amazing - wish i could have gone.
she really did give some pretty big information away didn't she? Dumbledore's dead and Sirius might be alive. But maybe when she said 'i know who's actually dead' she was talking about the people who actually die in Book 7, rather then the people that the press say will die.

I don't know. It seems to me that the context of the statement implies that she's talking about who's dead at that time. She didn't pause at any of the trio, and unless none of them dies (which they very well might, and it would be a huge, huge slip if that's what she meant), then it seems that she means "at this time," or at the end of book 6.

fish


*Edit*

Ok, I went to mugglenet, and this is what they had to say on the subject:



Kate from mugglenet reports differently:



And HPANA is even more different:



Leaky Cauldron reported JK as saying that the problem was that she already knew who died, to which LC's editor added "(presumably in book 6)."

So I don't know what is going on. These are all different. What do you think, LilyPotter? How do these paraphrases match up to what you saw?

Man, didn't anyone film this thing so that people can do a decent transcription job?

fish

[edited to remove caps. sorry mods.]

Nope. I really think she is talking about who is already dead. They said they would be airing the whole recording of the night I was there (squee! ) on MSN Webcast toward the end of the month... so we can put an end to all this when it's up.

Honestly, she did not say what mugglenet reported. She never said "throughout the series," that I am sure of, because I turned to the girl next to me right after she said it and we discussed it to no end.

It really, really seemed like she was talking about characters that were already perceived to be dead... But, hey, Matthew was there, too... Maybe he will come in here and back me up on this one ?

I would like to address the people who were at the event. I would like to ask if JKR debunked the Harry and Hermione ship? I'm hearing that she did sink it, and also that it wasn't mentioned. I'm dying of curiousity here!

I wasn't there Dumbledore's Widow, so I can't really help, sorry.

I just realised something else - if Harry dies, I wonder what the media will make of it? I can already see people poking fun at 'Harry Potter - the boy who died'. Hmm, depressing thought.

So that site got it wrong, eh? My dad and I had a disagreement about Dumbledore's confirmed death. He told me that the Afrikaans newspaper here, Die Beeld ('die' meaning 'the' ), reported about her visit. When I told him, yeah, and apparently she confirmed Dd's death he disagreed saying that the newspaper didn't say so. In short, an argument ensued about which source was more reliable for HP news - the local newspaper, or Vtm. (Yeah, we are a strange bunch).

Lily, thanks for that juicy clue about Sirius! I never gave up on him! Whoohoo!

Dumbledore's Widow -- I was in New York for the first reading, and yeah, she pretty much debunked Harry/Hermione.

The first question in the Q&A on August 1 was what Hermione would see in the Mirror of Erised. JKR talked a bit about how Hermione would want to see Voldemort defeated and herself, Harry, and Ron safe, just as any of the trio would want, really. Then she added that Hermione might also see herself "closely entwined with another person," which caused many members of the audience to shriek a lot.

Later on somebody asked her about how she was affected by the online HP fan community. First she said that she was tempted to look at reviews online and talked about some of the nutty negative reviews on Amazon. Then she talked about how she found all the forums and fan sites and the shipping wars. She spent a moment elaborating on what exactly "shipping wars" constitute (for the benefit of the Stephen King and John Irving fans who didn't have a clue what she was talking about, I'm guessing) and said something about "some people thought Harry and Hermione would be together." Some people cheered and she said "oh no, they're still out there!"

So I guess she didn't debunk it explicitly, but her meaning was pretty clear. She did debunk it quite explicitly in her interview with MuggleNet and The Leaky Cauldron after the HBP release, however.

Well, Dumbledore's Widow, I guess Allie pretty much answered your question. As for myself, I went on August 2, so I did not get to hear anything about Harry/Hermione. I guess our crowd was more interested in Snape (seriously... we were pretty much all Snape-a-holics!).

She did, however, do an interview with Mugglenet a while back after HbP's release, where she pretty much blatantly said Harry/Hermione was not going to happen. I'll try to find the link for you and update my post when I do.

But, hey, one can always hope, right?

I didn't get to go...I was in New York that day, but we didn't have tickets...Ahhh...well, next time 'eh?

Anyhow now i'm just up Log Island, in The Hamptons, where JKR has come to spend two weeks! She's rented a mansion which costs $30,000 a week! But everything is super expensive out here! Anyhow i'm hoping to see her around town, there are several restaurants and events where you see stacks of celebs, so i'll just wait and see!:D

Nick

Lily Potter, I'd be interested in that link. Thank you. But, if it's one that I have already read, I wasn't convinced. Truth be known, I just don't trust Emerson and anything that he says. He is extremely biased and it certainly shows.

But, as you say, 'one can always hope'!

I am happy to say I attended the event! The discussion about the dinner has had all of us going crazy. My version of her answer also includes Steven King's addition of saying "They could be dead." Steven King is a known Potter fan and just like the rest of us wants to finds out what happens, but like any avid fan - as much as we want to know, we also don't want to know. The ending is going to be very bitter sweet.

To go back about the event tho - In my opinion it was absolutely fantastic! I LOVED listening to Steven King's reading - especially while being able to visualize the move STAND BY ME. However throughout all of the readings, one thing was on my mind and that was getting to see Jo - something I have waited many years to accomplish. When it finally happened I jumped up out of my seat and screamed. It's one thing to read the books and hear your own voice - but to hear the voice of JK Rowling reading out of her own book - it sent chills down my spine! And I thought that was the best of my trip

Sadly, at the current moment I only have this video version of the video. I'll let you learn
what it is View Video! This was only one of two special events from the day - as soon as I have the pictures from the other - I will be sure to post them

Enjoy!

Wow, Dominick - that's the most jealous anyone has made me in a long time!

Lol, no chance of her coming to my little (seriously remote) corner of the world... it really sounds incredible to see her with your own eyes, and hear her voice reading these books in your presence. I would probably have choked trying to supress a scream of glee!

Btw, mate, your link to the video wants me to enter your photobucket password...

Anyway, I'm getting ever more frequent moments of melancholic excitement! I can't decide if I want the book to come out or not. It'll be the first time that there won't be anything to look forward to. If she gives it an open ending... I'll die.

Oh well, she'll probably be doing readings for the rest of her life - I'll get myself to one of them...