“We have a team of people who just wanted to put their particular talents to work to make sure this was a successful event. They are located all over the country. Some of them have jobs, some of them are students, but everyone put in their own time to make this happen,” said conference director Melissa Anelli, who also runs the Leaky Cauldron Web site, which is credited with creating and organizing the event. Anelli, who’s been living in London since August 2010 working on other Harry Potter-related projects, relied on technology to help her oversee the team of volunteers, who took on everything from logo design to public relations to lining up speakers.
The conference sold out by mid-June, with attendees paying as much as $200 for full registration or $60 for a one-day pass. Most of the revenue paid for the venue and for a private party at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, but that still left more than $120,000 that will now be donated to charity, with most of it going to the Harry Potter Alliance and Book Aid International. After the conference wrapped, Anelli gave a small stipend to about a dozen volunteers who put in the most time.
One of the most unique aspects of the event: Instead of a standard printed program, organizers spent $21,000 to give every attendee a hardcover book published by Jostens and made to look like a school yearbook. Anelli said they wanted to do something special since the event was coinciding with the end of the Harry Potter series.
"We wanted to mark that with something that marked the passage of time, and somebody suggested a yearbook. The second it was said out loud, we knew we had to do this,” said Anelli. In addition to information about the volunteer staff and the program, the book included a yearbook-style photo of every registrant who submitted one before June 1.
The conference featured appearances by nine actors from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, including Evanna Lynch and Chris Rankin. There were also performances by Team StarKid, Neil Cicierega and his Potter Puppet Pals, a keynote address from the American editor of the Harry Potter series, Arthur Levine, and dozens of small group sessions. On Thursday evening, organizers lined up 15 advance screenings of the new Harry Potter movie at the AMC Universal Cineplex available exclusively for conference participants.
