Journey to the Middle of Middle Earth

Joel travels to Wellington quite frequently and our recent travels plans actually had nothing to do with The Hobbit premiere as Joel's already working on films much further away on the horizon. However, when we realized that our time there would coincide with the premiere of The Hobbit we began to look at the plans for what Wellington has in store for this monumental time.

This first article I read on Huffington Post states

"[Wellington] is preparing for the world premiere of the opening film in "The Hobbit" trilogy by showcasing an artisan festival selling all manner of small-folk paraphernalia, laying a red carpet that will extend 500 yards through central Wellington"

also...

"Wellington plans to unofficially rename itself "The Middle of Middle-earth" for three weeks before and after the premiere. It says the name will be widely recognized, reflected on things like the postmarks on letters and the masthead of the city's main newspaper."

And there's more! I've heard rumors that NZ customs is getting into the spirit with passport stamps along this theme. I'm hoping to collect one of those on landing. Also as we're coming in on Air New Zealand we might be lucky enough to get this safety video before take-off:

So what exactly can we hope to see at the Premiere? Information is not that easy to come by but this article says that they "will install big screens in Waitangi Park with a live feed from the red carpet."  I'm not sure where we'll station ourselves but you can be sure we'll be getting loads of pictures and taking part in every part of the fun that we can.

We are staying in one of the host hotels for most of the preparations and by happy coincidence our new  CANON 70-200/4 L IS lens is arriving just in time to accompany us on this trip. I will be blogging the crap out of this this so check back here in a few weeks time!