If you are a HP movie Percy Weasley fan, this news is going to excite you! This just in from the folks at HPEF:

HPEF is excited to announce that Chris Rankin (a.k.a. Percy Weasley of the Harry Potter films) will be joining us at Azktraz! Mr. Rankin will be at Azkatraz throughout the weekend and will be presenting us with a Q&A session at A Dessert with Chris Rankin.  This will take place on either Saturday or Sunday (exact date and time to be announced in April). Tickets can be purchased by anyone holding a full registration, a Merlin’s Circle registration or a single-day registration, and only 125 tickets are available! Enjoy a chocolate fountain and mounds of other sweets, plus coffee, tea and lemonade, while participating in a Q&A with Chris. After he speaks, he’ll visit all the tables as well.  Tickets are $65 through April 1, and go up to $75 through June 30. If tickets are available at the door, they will cost $100 each.

In addition, Mr. Rankin will be participating in many more events at Azkatraz, including autograph and photograph sessions on Saturday and Sunday. More details will be announced in the near future.

Be sure to register! Remember, the $145 rate for basic registration to Azkatraz is only until April 15th, so don’t delay! If you already have an Azkatraz registration, you can add the Dessert With Chris by modifying your registration. Email info @ hp2009.org (without the spaces) if you have any questions.

You can still register for Azkatraz and remember to write that hpprogs referred you!

If it weren’t enough that Half Blood Prince is going to be screened at an Imax theater, or that there will be an awesome “Masters of Harry Potter” Business track, or that the formal and academic programming will be amazing, the folks at Azkatraz 2009 have made another VERY exciting announcement:

In conjunction with HP Alliance, HPEF is taking wizard rock into San Francisco Bay on Friday, July 17, 2009 with WROCK AROUND THE ROCK, a four-hour cruise featuring wrock, games, and a Magical/Muggle tour of Alcatraz from the water.

There will be food, an open bar (three hour open bar with alcohol available for a small additional fee), and music from Brian from the Draco Malfoys, The Remus Lupins, The Whomping Willows, The House of Black, Ministry of Magic and more!

Also, we’ll have one deck on the yacht that’s music-free, with space for games, conversation and, of course, food!

If you want to see all of the information about the cruise, go to the Azkatraz 2009 website for the details.

You can register for Azkatraz 2009 here. (Remember to write hpprogs in the referral section.)

We can’t wait to meet you at Azkatraz. And in the meantime, keep on wrocking (and prognosticating)!

HPEF Presents is the new podcast produced by the folks who are bringing us Azkatraz 2009 in San Francisco, California. They have released their first episode today. Take a listen as Aziza and Will interview Gwendolyn Grace who is the Minister of Magic for the upcoming Azkatraz Conference. This episode is especially informative for those of you who are trying to decide whether to attend Azkatraz. It is chock full of information about the conference and you will definitely get a great taste of what is to come!

Click here to listen to the first episode of HPEF Presents. 

As always, if you are interested in attending Azkatraz 2009, you can still register. Please make sure to write “hpprogs” in the referral space and we will all be able to be happy HP conference goers together in July of 2009!!

As we have mentioned before, Azkatraz 2009 will be taking place in San Fransisco this coming July 17-21, 2009. Azkatraz promises to be on of the best HPEF events yet and we hope you can make it. The first issue of “The Informant”, Azkatraz’s official newsletter is up and it has information about registration, the Half Blood Prince Movie Screening, special events and more! Also, as we all know, HP Progs has some of the most intelligent listeners and readers out there, so we wanted to remind you that you can still submit proposals for presentations at Azkatraz. Both Greg and I will be submitting proposals and perhaps this year, Greg will actually get one accepted ( ).

You can go to the HPEF Website to register and remember that the sooner you register, the cheaper it will be. Just a little favor, when you do register make sure to write “HP Progs” in the referral area so that the folks at the HPEF know who sent ya there!

-Penny

According to marketwatch.com website, Warner Brothers has announced this afternoon that they are moving the release of “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” to July 17, 2009.

Alan Horn, President and Chief Operating Officer of Warner Brothers said this about the move:

“Our reasons for shifting ‘Half-Blood Prince’ to summer are twofold: we know the summer season is an ideal window for a family tent pole release, as proven by the success of our last Harry Potter film, which is the second-highest grossing film in the franchise, behind only the first installment. Additionally, like every other studio, we are still feeling the repercussions of the writers’ strike, which impacted the readiness of scripts for other films–changing the competitive landscape for 2009 and offering new windows of opportunity that we wanted to take advantage of. We agreed the best strategy was to move ‘Half-Blood Prince’ to July, where it perfectly fills the gap for a major tent pole release for mid-summer.”

We will get you more info as it comes in. This is big news that will sure to disappoint many Potter fans.

UPDATE: One good thing to come out of this: I received this email from the HPEF, the minds behind Harry Potter conventions such as Prophecy, Portus and the upcoming, Azkatraz 2009:

We are in touch with movie theaters within walking distance of the Parc55, the official Azkatraz hotel, and we will definitely be having HBP viewing parties from Friday on.

The IMAX near the hotel – it’s about 3 or 4 blocks away – will not know if they will have the film in IMAX or on regular-sized screens until February or March, but we have reserved an entire theater for the showing at 00:00:01 on July 17, 2009! We are also working to schedule at least one additional showing over the weekend, and perhaps one on Tuesday as well, depending on attendee interest.

Tickets will be available when our registration system goes live in the beginning of next month, and we will have more info about cosplaying, music, and other movie-showing events at Azkatraz shortly.

Be sure to keep checking our website (http://www.hp2009.org) for all the latest updates!!

NICE!

(Hat Tip: AG, friend of DL)

(We switched servers and this information was lost in the process so I am reposting it).

We are hosting a Post-Portus Call-In show THIS evening, July 20 at 10pm EST.

Here is a link to the call in page: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/hpprogs/2008/07/21/Harry-Potter-Prognostications-Post-Portus-Call-In-Show

You will be able to listen to the show as well as take part in a chat on this page.
The number to call in is: (646) 595-4635

The service we use claims that there is a “click to talk” feature for VoIP- but I haven’t seen it work yet, so unfortunately for most of you (and us) it will be a long distance call.

Greg and I recorded a post -Portus podcast last week but we realized that there was no way we could capture all that went on at the conference.

Even if you aren’t a regular HPProgs listener, we’d love to have you call in so that you can give your own perspective on Portus. I think it would be a great way to showcase what these conferences and the HPEF are all about.
We can’t wait to talk to everyone about your Portus experiences!!

-Penny

As you may have read, we just got back from Portus 2008, a Harry Potter convention that took place July 10-13 in Dallas, Texas.  And, guess what?  We had a blast!  From Jim Dale giving a live performance, to meeting lots of fun and interesting people, it was a great time.  We sat right down as soon as we could after we got home to record some of our thoughts on what the Harry Potter fan-world is like one year after the release of Deathly Hallows, along with details on the all the great sessions we went to, movies watched, conversations had, etc.  It really was a great time, and special thanks to the HPEF for going all out and putting together an amazing weekend.

If you were there, leave a comment or send us an email.  And make sure to check out www.hp2009.org for Azkatraz, in San Francisco!  Hope to see you there!

This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com. Download a free audiobook of your choice today at audiblepodcast.com/hp.

Don’t forget to check out Harry Potter Prognostications on the new Odeo.  Subscribe, why dontcha?

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It is possible that this has been up for weeks but I just noticed that the Formal Programming for Portus has been announced on the website.

My two roundtable discussions are included.

If you haven’t decided whether to come to Portus or not yet, maybe this programming list will help you make your decision.

It is going to be amazing. Nuff said.

Update: I just read through the presenters biographies and I realized that I am one of the only presenters who didn’t offer my credentials. I feel stupid now because I certainly worked hard enough for my M.S. and there is no better place in the world for me to brag about it than at a Harry Potter convention.  Did I mention I graduated Summa Cum Laude (that is for Greg who didn’t)?