Tolkien fans will be in their element this month when a brand-new festival takes place in the beautiful setting of Weston Park. Promising lantern-lit lanes, woodsmoke, music - and the chance to live life as a hobbit - Brandywine offers five days of unique and immersive fun.

What’s On recently caught up with one of the team responsible for bringing the festival to the Shire...

Lord Of The Rings fans are being invited to explore their inner hobbit when the immersive Middle-earth festival Brandywine comes to the UK for the first time this month.

A live-action role-playing (LARP) event, Brandywine will turn the grounds of Weston Park near Shifnal into The Shire, home of the hobbits in JRR Tolkien’s beloved books The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings trilogy.

Festival-goers will take on the role of a hobbit and follow immersive storylines created by a team of performers. Plus, they can join in with a whole host of hobbit-related activities, including games, live music, dancing, and workshops exploring cookery and textiles.

Visitors to the festival have the option of staying for the full event and camping, or just attending for one day on Saturday the 12th.

The first Brandywine Festival took place last year in Kentucky and was an immediate sell-out. The organisers, German-based LARP experts Burgschneider, were keen to bring the event not just to the UK but as close as possible to Birmingham - the childhood home of Tolkien.

“How Tolkien imagined The Shire was specifically the West Midlands and the Cotswolds,” says Burgschneider chief creative officer Thomas ‘Beol’ Miller. “Those regions are really the spiritual home of Middle-earth, and Tolkien was clear about this in some of his writing. Therefore, we very much loved the idea of having the festival so close to his home in Birmingham. This was very much on the wish list, and when it came to finding the right venue, the team at Weston Park were able to help us bring that to life by having a wonderful site there on the estate. They are a wonderful team - capable and knowledgeable - and helped us with all the questions that we had as we developed the event.”

Once visitors step into the festival, they will be entering a whole different world.

“The Brandywine Festival is a fully immersive, multi-day experience set in The Shire,” explains Beol, “so from the moment you arrive, the modernity of the world fades and we’re focused on being ‘in character’, roleplaying and being as hobbits; everything from lantern-lit little lanes between tents, woodsmoke over fires, live music, and a living community of hobbits who are there to roleplay that world and embody that world for the four days of the event.

“We have the Four Farthings Games and a series of Shire games, camping, and the storytelling of what is happening within The Shire in that period. We’ve picked a very specific date within The Shire, which gives us a lot of context [in terms of] what is happening within the world of the hobbits. So what would be the gossip? What would there be to do? And then we try to explore those ideas in the story.”

From the time the Burgschneider team were first asked by Middle-earth Enterprises - which holds the worldwide rights to The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings books - to create Brandywine, it took around 18 months to develop the concept. Beol says it was essential from the outset that the festival be faithful to Tolkien’s novels.

“We treat the event almost as if it is a re-enactment of that world, just as much as it is a game of make-believe at its core. We are treating Tolkien’s work almost as a primary source for a historian. We look at the books and then try to surmise and understand what and how he described it, so that we can attempt - as best we can within reason - to recreate that feeling and those moments.”

On the Brandywine website, the team provide helpful guides to costuming, creating a character and all the other elements of the festival, to ensure visitors can fully immerse themselves in the fun.

“The idea is that you are stepping into the world that exists there, and you aren’t Bilbo but you can decide who you are. And because we are giving players a very clear set of guidelines and railings [within which] they can interact and roleplay, it’s very easy for them to go through the process of designing a character.

“We have wonderful tools on our website that help you to design a character, and tools to help you to understand what it is to roleplay as a generic hobbit of your own accord. There is no limitation to the creative opportunities within the world of Tolkien. We want to see a visitor’s story through their character; we want to see their creativity come out, and the expression and the love that they have for Tolkien’s work.”
This even extends to the camping, where visitors have the choice of recreating a Shire camping experience or stepping out of the game and bringing more modern equivalents. The aim, says Beol, is to ensure Brandywine is as accessible as it can be.

“This event is really for everyone, even if you haven’t done LARP before. This is a wonderful place to be able to explore roleplaying and being in a character in a way that is very accessible and fun. The event very much welcomes you in with open arms, with a wonderful community of like-minded people who are there to play to life.

“If you love The Lord Of The Rings and you can imagine yourself enjoying a Saturday spent relaxing, having a picnic as a hobbit, playing games, listening to music, dancing, eating food and spending time with good friends, then this is the event for you. Tolkien said ‘If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world’ - and that is what we are trying to bring here.”

Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings are among the most popular books ever written and were memorably made into a series of hugely successful films by Peter Jackson. Beol believes the key to their success lies in Tolkien’s vision.

“At the end of the day it’s an endearing story that touches the core of our wanting a world in which there is a clear division between good and evil and a clear opportunity for us to make a difference in the world; and then, further than that, to explore a space in which myth and legend still hold sway. I think that speaks to who we are as people, and to our love for adventure and for the triumphing of a classic hero story, despite the fact he’s nothing but a simple hobbit.”

Brandywine Festival takes place at Weston Park, on the Shropshire/ Staffordshire border, from Wednesday  9 to Sunday 13 September 

By Diane Parkes