I got a nice surprise on my birthday this year. My Nan bought me a ticket to the tour to cheer me up a bit (I have been pretty miserable lately, a fact she'd clearly picked up on). I was thrilled! Then I learned that my little brother, Ryan, had bought himself a ticket too, and would be driving us there. So I didn't have to worry about getting there or anything else, and I'd have some company!
This past Friday, July 28th, three days before Harry Potter's birthday, the day finally came! And it was brilliant.
I got up obscenely early because our ticket time was 11:00. The drive was only about an hour and a half, but we left with plenty of time just in case there was unforeseen traffic (the traffic on the M25 was, of course, a given). I managed to stay awake on the drive because I was excited about the day, and because we played music from my iPod pretty loudly. We got there about an hour and a half before we were due to go into the tour. We parked up and saw that the place is two huge studio buildings, with Harry Potter posters up along the sides, and three of the chess pieces from Philosopher's Stone standing to one side. The photo above is the sign on the main entrance.
We were allowed into the 'lobby', which was good because it was freezing outside. We spent a long time looking around in the gift shop - there was so much merchandise, including a huge wand section and a section made to look like Honeydukes in Hogsmeade that sold a bunch of delicious sweets. I wanted to buy the lot! Speaking of food, we figured we'd get hungry during the tour so stopped in the cafe for a quick bite; I had a cheese sandwich and a strawberry cupcake.
We joined the line early, and so we got in a little before the start time on our ticket. The queue takes you past Harry's little cupboard under the stairs, the smallest set they made for the films. Literally everyone took a photo of it, which wasn't surprising. Before getting into the 'actual' tour, you sit in a cinema and watch a short clip about the studio narrated by Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint. Then the screen rises and you're faced with the door to the Great Hall from the films. Awesome!
We were surprised that the Great Hall was the first set that we saw. It was truly awesome, but it looked a bit smaller than it does in the films. There were mannequins scattered around, all wearing different costumes used in the movies. We spent time wandering around and taking in all the details (there are many, it must have taken so long to create). The ceiling was not the sky, however - all that was up there were studio lights. We later saw a scale model of what the ceiling would look like, which was used as the background in the films, while the sky was edited on top with CGI. Brilliant!
For this summer, they have a special exhibit called Wizarding Wardrobes. It opened only a week before Ryan and I went, and will continue until September 27th. There are already costumes around the tour, but this special exhibit means that so many more are scattered around including several of Rita Skeeter's crazy ensembles, Lupin's ripped clothes from the scene of his werewolf transformation, and the smoking pink suit worn by Dolores Umbridge when she was singed by Fred & George Weasley's fireworks (amongst many others). There were also countless hats and accessories that were part of this special exhibit, and lots of videos showing about how things were made by the fabulous costume department.
There were so many amazing sets, or pieces of sets, throughout the tour. Some of these included: the Charity Burbage table scene from Deathly Hallows Part 1, the Potions dungeon, Dumbledore's office, the Gryffindor common room, one of the black-and-green walls from the Ministry of Magic, and many more. I won't make an exhaustive list - I'll be here all day, and I don't want to spoil everything for people who haven't been yet. There were sections on magical vehicles, including the filming/editing processes behind Quidditch games; creature building and animation; a display of Dark artifacts and Death Eater masks; and lots and lots of architecture. One of the most amazing things I saw was the horrifying 'Magic is Might' statue, installed into the Voldemort-run Ministry in the final films. This statue was apparently hand-crafted by one man, which awes me. It must have taken forever. It's totally amazing, even if it is a horrid symbol of oppression in the books and films.
 |
| Dumbledore's Office |
 |
| Potions Class |
 |
| 'Magic is Might' |
In March of this year, they opened a new section of the Studio Tour - a mock-up of the Forbidden Forest on the grounds of Hogwarts. So of course, Ryan and I got to see this when we visited. It was really hard to take photos of it because the trees are so big and it's really dark in there (my poor iPhone cannot handle the dark), but it was really cool. The ground felt springy with shed leaves and pine needles, it was chilly, and pressing some buttons made lightning occur, along with thunder and rain sound effects. There were recreations of Buckbeak the Hippogriff and the Acromantula that lurked in there (of course including the biggest one of all, Hagrid's spider friend Aragog).
Beyond a smaller gift shop was my first favourite part of the tour: Platform 9¾! I've visited the smaller installation that's actually at King's Cross station in London. This one was more extensive, obviously. There were a few sections of the wall with trolleys and luggage sticking out of them for you to take photos of you 'going through the wall'. There was another gift shop, disguised as a railway store and a Daily Prophet stand. And, of course, there was the Hogwarts Express. We were able to go into one of the carriages and each compartment had been set up to look like the train in each film. My favourite was the Prisoner of Azkaban one because the windows were all frosted up, signifying Dementors.
Beyond Platform 9¾ was what we were told was the halfway point. There was a big cafe where people could fill up and rest for a while, as well as a Butterbeer bar. We simply had to try some! We learned that only four places in the whole world sells Butterbeer (I figure one place is the Orlando Wizarding World of Harry Potter, but I don't know the others). It tastes really unusual, kind of like fizzy caramel/vanilla. The foam on top expands at an alarming rate, so it looked like my cup kept refilling itself.
We drank our Butterbeer in the small outside section, where there were some exterior sets. There was the Hogwart's Bridge, the huge purple Knight Bus, 4 Privet Drive, and the Potter Cottage (complete with the blasted open roof where Voldemort's curse backfired). You could walk across the bridge, but you could only sit in a small back part of the Knight Bus - the rest is closed off to preserve the sets. Outside there were also Arthur Weasley's flying Ford Anglia and Sirius Black's/Hagrid's flying motorcycle. There were also more chess pieces from Philosopher's Stone.
You could also go inside 4 Privet Drive. It was a set house, so there was no upstairs and the only room open for us to peek into was the living room, where hundreds of Hogwarts letters were suspended in the air. It was fun to see swimming certificates and photos of Dudley Dursley on the walls.
Honestly, there were so many props and sets and costumes, but there were also endless drawings and blueprints from the art department. There were amazing white card models of all kinds of sets (including the entire village of Hogsmeade), I can't imagine how long it took to draw, prototype, and then model all of this stuff. I don't think the art department get nearly enough credit - absolutely tonnes of work went into this, and I doubt we even saw a tiny percentage of all the concept art and models created for it.
My second favourite part of the whole tour was the studio set of Diagon Alley. Obviously, it was just shop fronts with the windows dressed, but it was so cool to stand there and look around at everything. It was colourful and fascinating to peer into all of the windows and watch the moving parts on the storefronts. Gringotts was also really cool, a tall wonky building in the corner of the Alley. I couldn't capture the whole thing in one photo (in the one below, Gringotts was just behind me), but I did my best.
The penultimate part of the tour was probably the most stunning and unexpected. A gigantic sculpture of Hogwarts, that must have taken so long to make, sat in the middle of a big room, with a sloped walkway taking you all the way around the thing and to the bottom. The lights periodically dimmed and little lamplights would appear inside the sculpture's windows. It was so amazing, we spent ages in there looking at it from all angles and marvelling at how beautifully built it was.
The last part was part of the interior of Ollivander's wand shop. Every wand box had a different name on it. These were wizards and witches not even mentioned in the books and films, and yet they went to all the effort to label every individual box. They were stacked floor to ceiling all around the place. It was a pretty great place for the tour to end, and we exited (into the wand section of the gift shop, of course). I'm pretty skint at the moment so I only grabbed myself a postcard of the Sirius Black wanted poster, and a green lollipop shaped like the Dark Mark.
Obviously I took waaaaay more photos than this, and there's so many things that I've left out. This is for two simple reasons. 1) I didn't want this post to just be a spam of over 100 photographs (seriously!), and 2) I don't want to spoil everything for people who might want to visit and see it all for themselves. I've been purposely vague so as not to ruin all of the surprises. I also had a horrible revelation after the tour, when reviewing the photos: When someone else takes my picture, I look so awkward and terrible. I know how to take a good selfie, but that's not really useful in something like this because the background is the most important part!
Anyway, I would totally recommend getting down to the Studio Tour if you like Harry Potter. It was actually longer and way more packed with stuff than I thought it would be (always a pessimist). We didn't even manage to read all of the signs and things in there, or we would've taken even longer. Apparently, someone has actually spent 13 hours in the place! They must have read everything, watched everything, and gone on all of the green screen experiences. Amazing! Here's a bonus photo of me and my little bro, totally buzzing:
Beyond a smaller gift shop was my first favourite part of the tour: Platform 9¾! I've visited the smaller installation that's actually at King's Cross station in London. This one was more extensive, obviously. There were a few sections of the wall with trolleys and luggage sticking out of them for you to take photos of you 'going through the wall'. There was another gift shop, disguised as a railway store and a Daily Prophet stand. And, of course, there was the Hogwarts Express. We were able to go into one of the carriages and each compartment had been set up to look like the train in each film. My favourite was the Prisoner of Azkaban one because the windows were all frosted up, signifying Dementors.
Beyond Platform 9¾ was what we were told was the halfway point. There was a big cafe where people could fill up and rest for a while, as well as a Butterbeer bar. We simply had to try some! We learned that only four places in the whole world sells Butterbeer (I figure one place is the Orlando Wizarding World of Harry Potter, but I don't know the others). It tastes really unusual, kind of like fizzy caramel/vanilla. The foam on top expands at an alarming rate, so it looked like my cup kept refilling itself.
We drank our Butterbeer in the small outside section, where there were some exterior sets. There was the Hogwart's Bridge, the huge purple Knight Bus, 4 Privet Drive, and the Potter Cottage (complete with the blasted open roof where Voldemort's curse backfired). You could walk across the bridge, but you could only sit in a small back part of the Knight Bus - the rest is closed off to preserve the sets. Outside there were also Arthur Weasley's flying Ford Anglia and Sirius Black's/Hagrid's flying motorcycle. There were also more chess pieces from Philosopher's Stone.
 |
| The Potter Cottage (Pottage??) |
 |
| The Knight Bus |
 |
| Me at the Privet Drive Sign |
Honestly, there were so many props and sets and costumes, but there were also endless drawings and blueprints from the art department. There were amazing white card models of all kinds of sets (including the entire village of Hogsmeade), I can't imagine how long it took to draw, prototype, and then model all of this stuff. I don't think the art department get nearly enough credit - absolutely tonnes of work went into this, and I doubt we even saw a tiny percentage of all the concept art and models created for it.
My second favourite part of the whole tour was the studio set of Diagon Alley. Obviously, it was just shop fronts with the windows dressed, but it was so cool to stand there and look around at everything. It was colourful and fascinating to peer into all of the windows and watch the moving parts on the storefronts. Gringotts was also really cool, a tall wonky building in the corner of the Alley. I couldn't capture the whole thing in one photo (in the one below, Gringotts was just behind me), but I did my best.
The penultimate part of the tour was probably the most stunning and unexpected. A gigantic sculpture of Hogwarts, that must have taken so long to make, sat in the middle of a big room, with a sloped walkway taking you all the way around the thing and to the bottom. The lights periodically dimmed and little lamplights would appear inside the sculpture's windows. It was so amazing, we spent ages in there looking at it from all angles and marvelling at how beautifully built it was.
The last part was part of the interior of Ollivander's wand shop. Every wand box had a different name on it. These were wizards and witches not even mentioned in the books and films, and yet they went to all the effort to label every individual box. They were stacked floor to ceiling all around the place. It was a pretty great place for the tour to end, and we exited (into the wand section of the gift shop, of course). I'm pretty skint at the moment so I only grabbed myself a postcard of the Sirius Black wanted poster, and a green lollipop shaped like the Dark Mark.
Obviously I took waaaaay more photos than this, and there's so many things that I've left out. This is for two simple reasons. 1) I didn't want this post to just be a spam of over 100 photographs (seriously!), and 2) I don't want to spoil everything for people who might want to visit and see it all for themselves. I've been purposely vague so as not to ruin all of the surprises. I also had a horrible revelation after the tour, when reviewing the photos: When someone else takes my picture, I look so awkward and terrible. I know how to take a good selfie, but that's not really useful in something like this because the background is the most important part!
Anyway, I would totally recommend getting down to the Studio Tour if you like Harry Potter. It was actually longer and way more packed with stuff than I thought it would be (always a pessimist). We didn't even manage to read all of the signs and things in there, or we would've taken even longer. Apparently, someone has actually spent 13 hours in the place! They must have read everything, watched everything, and gone on all of the green screen experiences. Amazing! Here's a bonus photo of me and my little bro, totally buzzing:
