Harry Potter Midnight Barnes & Noble Release Party Recap

Yes! I’m back! After almost an entire month away from blogging, I have returned. If you follow me on social media, you probably know why I was taking my blogging break, but if you don’t, I’ll share my July whine-fest with you.

I was gone because I just didn’t have time to blog. I was 1) moving apartments, 2) finishing an internship course that required a portfolio, 3) working as a graduate assistant and editing a journal, and 4) not reading a whole heck of a lot.

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Okay, so now that that’s over with, let’s get to the fun stuff. It’s time for me to recap my Harry Potter and the Cursed Child experience at the Barnes and Noble Midnight Release Party!

As I’m sure many of you know, J.K. Rowling and co. decided to grace us with an addition to the HP world, and yes, I’ve already read and devoured it. (My review will be up sometime this week.) Because I consider myself to be a dedicated fan—not that those who didn’t attend release parties are not—I dragged my friend along to this four-hour event. Thus, we begin the recap.

Okay, so walking through the door of BN is a magical experience all on its own. There’s books, more books, snacks, and BOOKS. However, with the Harry Potter décor floating around and the various wizards, witches, and creatures making their way across the floor, BN became a pseudo Hogwarts.

Thankfully, I got there early enough to score a red (Gryffindor) ticket for the eventual line. I don’t think the papers got all the way through the houses, though. No green (Slytherin) ticket was seen by my eyes.

After picking up a ticket, my friend and I simply browsed the shelves, which wasn’t necessarily a good thing for me since I had just spent too much mullah on home furnishings and groceries. Surprisingly, I restrained myself, though, and I didn’t purchase a book. I did buy a Golden Snitch though. (Don’t judge me, I had a 20% off coupon, and I wanted a souvenir of this particular HP experience.)

There were a few different events going on over the 8 p.m. to 12 a.m. time period, most of which catered to children. There was a decent HP trivia game, but so many littler kids were in attendance that it just kind of wasn’t as fun as it could have been. 

Besides the trivia, there was a fortunate teller (which used a method similar to MASH), wand-making (construction paper and string), a coloring/crossword puzzles station, and face painting. Needless to say, my 22-year-old friend and I did not find any event particularly thrilling.

I like that my local BN put on this event, but I feel like some consideration should have been taken into account for the generation that actually grew up with HP and would come to the release. Plus, I’ve seen some other cities’ BN HP events, and they just seemed way more sophisticated. Oh well…

Because the events weren’t for us, I mostly helped the friend find books to read. She ended up buying Red Queen and Fiery Heart. Red Queen was because of my recommendation, while Fiery Heart was because she thought she didn’t have that particular Richelle Mead book yet. It turns out that she did. Oops. Oh, and she didn’t buy a copy of HPatCC. Mostly because of its price and the fact that she doesn’t own copies of the other books.

Honestly, I had more fun recommending books to my friend than I did at the event itself. I also liked being in a bookstore full of new releases. I try to limit myself to stepping into a place where I can spend too much money on something that costs half as much online.

We also bought some food from the coffee shop inside BN. Unfortunately, they were out of ingredients to make the Butterbeer drink, and they also didn’t have any special HP snacks. Boo… I was hoping for some Pumpkin Pasties or candy snitches. I ended up getting a plain ol’ chocolate chip cookie.

The last part of the night involved the line. Of course, it was hot and miserable, but it was made even more so by a particularly loud screaming girl behind me. Because it didn’t take more than 15 minutes to get the lines situated, the trivia moderator thought it would be a good idea to ask questions while we stood in line. Okay, that’s fine, but some people were just obnoxiously loud. The girl behind me actually blew my eardrum out at one point. Gah. Annoying people suck.

All in all, I’m happy I went to the event, just because I want to remember the time that the eighth HP book/play released. I’m a little disappointed in the BN party, simply because I was expecting more, but it’s okay. I got a new Harry Potter book out of it, so we’re all good.

Now, let’s just hope there’s another HP midnight release somewhere in the near future. Come on, J.K., you know you can’t stop now. We need more.

*Note: The BN banner image is from BN's website. I didn't make it. Also, I'm sorry for the blurry pics. Apparently, I was too excited to take decent ones.