Alamo Denver Becomes School of Sorcery
Photo by Chris Gilstrap
This weekend, the wizarding community made their way to the Alamo Drafthouse Denver for an exciting number of events surrounding the world of Harry Potter. With Newt Scamander and all of his fantastic beasts bringing J.K Rowling’s wizarding world back to the forefront of fans’ minds, it was time for both muggles and wizards alike to head to theaters for some frivolity.
The Denver Drafthouse team brought in a special guest to provide said frivolity: Avistrum Academy of Sorcery. The team from Avistrum is a local group who have specialized in providing Harry Potter themed entertainment for well over a decade. In addition to their live, interactive show with its own unique storyline and characters that happens twice a year, the team also frequently throws events for local theaters, museums, and zoos.
With a range of events to offer, the Denver Drafthouse team had Avistrum do a couple of their specialties including a class and their famous Wizard Jeopardy. The class offered was Quidditch 101. After going through the history of the fabled wizard sport, and touching on the beasts included (like the golden snidget), patrons were invited to create their own snitches. After many laughs, and some pipe cleaner incidents, it was on to the main event: Jeopardy.
Wizard Jeopardy has been a cornerstone for many of Avistrum’s events for several years now and also acts one of the tasks in the group’s very own version of the TriWizard Tournament, which happens annually. While sometimes the categories cover all of geekdom, the event’s focus was all around the wizarding world that everyone was ready to throw themselves back into.
There were a range of categories for the three contestants to answer, spanning from wizarding locales to those who were lost in the battle to defeat Voldemort. The clever contestants, James, Kenny and Julie, all competed for the grand prize: Passes to StarFest 2017, and Avistrum’s next big show, running in conjunction with MileHiCon in 2017.
In the end, Julie was the one to take home the grand prize, but James and fan favorite Kenny didn’t go home empty handed. James, taking second, left the round with a custom leather belt and pouch, and Kenny is now the proud owner of a few passes to Cave of the Winds.
The crowd was not forgotten amidst the Jeopardy excitement. Everyone always wants to scream out the answer when a contestant can’t quite get the question, and in these live events, they’re given the opportunity should the contestant run out of time. In addition to that catharsis, Avistrum also brought along plenty of doorprizes, giving the audience more opportunity to shout and make off with some cool prizes!
With some quidditch knowledge under their belts and their lungs tired, the audience settled in for a good old fashioned night at the movies once the festivities wrapped. Next time there will be a whole wealth of new questions to add to the trivia surrounding this new world of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them!
