Experiencing the Magic at Wizard Fest

By Sami Dugdale
Station Manager

We came, we saw…we got kicked out of the VIP section at Wizard Fest.

On Saturday Nov. 9, I had the opportunity to attend Wizard Fest at The Rock Box theatre in San Antonio, Texas. Wizard Fest is put on by Supreme Entertainment’s Pop Up Party Tours where they travel across the country and put on different themed parties at select venues.

This particular pop up party was completely Harry Potter themed with trivia, a DJ playing music from the movies and early 2000s, famous drinks like butterbeer and polyjuice potion, as well as a costume contest.

The first thing I noticed when I walked into the venue was that there weren’t many people there. I had expected to walk into a festival type of event filled with people dressed as witches and wizards.

Instead, I saw a few single people seated at separate cocktail tables in their robes, a few smaller groups and some kids in the corner playing beer pong (with water).

The venue had some decorations with cardboard cutouts of the characters, a smoke machine and even the shrunken head from the third Harry Potter movie. Other than that, the venue was pretty bare except for some leftover Halloween decorations.

I have a vivid memory of us sitting on a couch kind of off to the side of the dance floor so that we could take in everything and people watch for a bit. We were just listening to a dubstep mix of Hedwig’s Theme when a woman and a security guard walked towards us.

She pointed at us and said something, and the security guard came up to us and politely asked us if we have VIP badges. We told him no and said that we were just there to cover the event.

He informed us that only VIP members could sit on the couches. It was just some couches set up on the side of the club with no marked sign but we gladly got up and went to stand somewhere.

Is it bad that this is the most exciting thing that happened that night?

About 30 minutes after the event formally started, they began a round of trivia questions, all specific to the Harry Potter movies and books.

Sadly, I did not win this trivia round because I couldn’t remember what Mad Eye Moody’s signature phrase was (psst, I googled it later and it’s “constant vigilance”, like I would remember that).

The winner went over to a table that looked like it had a bunch of Harry Potter merch that they could pick from for their prize.

After that, it was more music and dancing, a few more rounds of trivia, a costume contest and I suppose a real magician? I say suppose because after about an hour and a half we decided that the wizard, sorry magician, wasn’t actually going to happen.

Overall, I think the idea of a Harry Potter themed festival is a great concept, especially one that travels all over the country. Although I wasn’t super impressed by the event, I definitely think that there is room for improvement, especially for something that has such a massive fan-base.

Featured image by Sami Dugdale.