Con of Thrones, an upcoming Game of Thrones fan convention, is hitting Nashville, TN in June, but before that gets off the ground, there’s another GoT event happening on the other side of the world: ThronesCon, which is what it sounds like, is coming to the Melbourne Showgrounds in Ascot Vale, Australia on May 20-21.
“It’s probably the most popular television show of the current age,” event director Pete J. Smith told The Sunday Morning Herald. “It’s been said we’re living in the Golden Age of television right now. Game of Thrones season six had the largest premiere audience of any television show in Australian history, and we’re coming up to the final two seasons right now – so the hype is starting to build.”
"For me, what it’s about is engaging people, getting them thinking about what Game of Thrones is actually trying to say. I hope people leave having learned something, maybe about themselves."
As you do at conventions, ThronesCon will have a bunch of attractions, including cosplay, a merchandise hall, a 600 kg replica of the Iron Throne, and special guests. Actors in attendance will include Miltos Yerolemou (Syrio Forel), Ian Beattie (Ser Meryn Trant), Eugene Simon (Lancel Lannister) and Dominic Carter (Lord Janos Slynt). Yerolemou is also one of many guests attending Con of Thrones, so he’ll have a busy couple of months.
Talking about his death scene with Arya Stark, Beattie gave a little preview of the kind of insight he might give:
"It really was one of my proudest days in front of the camera. It was just Maisie and me, and I later found out that Ser Meryn’s death was the most expensive one they’d had to film, probably because it took all day. It was a very, very long day. But it was a spectacular gift the boys gave me, that exit."
Good times.
Beattie also gave his thoughts on the show in general. “Everybody involved with it knew it was pretty good,” he said of the show’s early days. “But as the seasons went on, the budgets increased and the viewing figures increased, it developed something that money can’t buy. That was a friend turning to another friend and saying, ‘You’ve got to watch this show.’ By season four, season five, if you weren’t watching Game of Thrones there was something wrong with you. It certainly snowballed beyond what anybody expected.”
It snowballed all the way to the point where there’s now such thing as a Game of Thrones convention season. And we’re entering it!
Head here for ThronesCon ticket info.