Potterfest is making magic in Edinboro
Lessons in wizardry? Your kids may actually wanna go to school on a Saturday. Butterbeer? You may wanna check it out, too.
My fifth-grader's known for weeks how he wants to spend this Saturday: Getting up all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and walking, in the cold and rain, to school.
And he wants to get there early.
That's some kinda magic, right there, and it's the kind of spell that's been cast over Edinboro with Potterfest 2014 -- a pretty-magnificent, week-long celebration, examination, and live-action imagining of the world (and all things in it) of J.K. Rowling's epic Harry Potter series.
Today's the day for "A Day at the Castle," in which Potterfest's people take a plain-Jane Edinboro University academic building and turn it into a cool, rather wonderfully-imagined version of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
As for the morning's 'studies' in wizarding, "I'm really looking forward to potions," my boy said when he hopped outta bed not long after sunrise.
That's happening this morning at Edinboro University's Miller Research Center, and there's magic brewing elsewhere in and around the 'Boro on this last day of Potterfest, too:
- From 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., there's 'Butterbeer' being served downtown at Eclectic Etceteras coffehouse;
- Wooden Nickel Buffalo Farm's corn maze and haunted path are open all day;
- A real, live 'Quidditch' match, hosted by the Edinboro University Flying Scots, is at 11 a.m. at EU's Loveland Field (just refer back to that map link above if you hafta);
- At 1 o'clock is this year's Tri-Wizard Cup's third event, a canoe race at Edinboro Lake;
- And, at 2 (and this one's weather-permitting), is a 'Quidditch' workshop at Loveland Field.
To find out more about what Potterfest is all about, what's been happening this week, and what's going on today, visit potterfest.cs.edinboro.edu.
And try not to be late for school.
Writer/photographer Ryan Smith can be reached at rsmith@eriereader.com, and you can follow him on Twitter @ryansmithplens
