Attending the Game of Thrones Season 5 Premiere Red Carpet in London!
- Apr 4, 2015
- 3 min read
18th March 2015 was the world premiere of Game of Thrones season 5 at the Tower of London. My husband Sebastian had won us tickets from Sky Atlantic to attend the fan enclosure near the red carpet, and this blog post will cover what we experienced on the day.
We were told to meet at The Dickens Inn in London where we stayed for an hour with the other competition winners before being transfered via coach to the Tower of London. We were eager to get to the front of the queue to ensure we got a front row view of the carpet, and were very excited to be the first coach to leave the inn. Our coach was full of anxious, and excited fans. So when the second coach pulled up in front of us due to a lack of parking spaces, our coach party was not impressed. Thanks to a few highly vocal coach members, who explained to security the wrath of pissed off geeks, we were eventually allowed to be the first coach to visit the red carpet and take up our positions against the metal railings. We were given red Game of Thrones wrist bands and walked through security down to the red carpet. What I didn't realise and to my happy surprise, is that it didn't matter which coach we were on, because there was enough railings for nearly everyone to get a front row view of the red carpet.
We selected a place to stand directly in front of the big screen which had been positioned at the centre of the red carpet. This gave us enough time to see the stars coming down the carpet so that we could prepare our poster and two Game of Thrones calendars for signatures, and potential selfies.
After another hour wait at the railings we were treated to a fantastic build up with two large torches of fire either side of the screen, and then a light show of the three dragons flying on the side of the Tower of London wall.
Sue Perkins was hosting the interviews and we saw her preparing for the show before the stars started to arrive. It was quite dark once the stars started to come down the carpet, and the light from the fire torches was just enough to create an intense atmosphere. Most of the actors were able to stop and give signatures and have photos taken all the way down the crowd.
Some however, were hurried along for the official premiere red carpet photos and interviews, so we did miss meeting a couple of stars for this reason, these included; Sophie Turner, Charles Dance, Aidan Gillen, and Nathalie Emmanuel. The poster we brought with us was signed by most of the stars, with a few exceptions, and Kit Harington even signed it twice in some confusion. We also were able to get a selfie with the guest star magician Dynamo.
1. Dean-Charles Chapman (Tommen Baratheon)
2. Kit Harington (Jon Snow)
3. Liam Cunningham (Davos Seaworth)
4. Jessica Henwick (Nymeria Sand)
5. Toby Sebastian (Trystane Martell)
6. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister)
7. Daniel Portman (Podrick Payne)
8. Conleth Hill (Lord Varys)
9. Roger Ashton-Griffiths (Mace Tyrell)
10. Jonathan Pryce (High Sparrow)
11. Mark Gatiss (Tycho Nestoris)
12. Mark Addy (Robert Baratheon)
13. Iwan Rheon (Ramsay Snow)
14. Alfie Allen (Theon Greyjoy)
15. Isaac Hempstead Wright (Bran Stark)
16. Jacob Anderson (Grey Worm)
17. John Bradley (Samwell Tarly)
18. Gwendoline Christie (Brienne of Tarth)
The experience of meeting the stars was exhilarating, but this mixed with the freezing cold weather made it difficult to manage holding a phone, two pens, and two calendars to sign. So it was a tricky task to focus on getting signatures, and photos, often you had to choose between one or the other. I focused mainly on signatures because the lighting was very poor anyway.
The three nicest cast members to highlight were; Kit Harington because he was the second star down the carpet and he managed to handle the excitement of the crowd very well, with generous time spent with the fans. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau also spent time with the fans even when event organisers were urging him to abandon signatures to attend the premiere. The other shining star who literally shined in her beautiful white flowing dress was Gwendoline Christie, because although she towered over the crowd with her tall beauty, she personally took the photo of every selfie that was asked of her.
The experience of meeting so many great cast members from Game of Thrones was fantastic, but it was very surreal to meet them so quickly, and it was almost impossible to really take it in. Once it was all over we slowly left the carpet area, and returned back to the reality of normal everyday life.
As this was my first red carpet experience, I did not know what to expect. But now I have a taste of being at a premiere I will most definitely try to do it again. I also have developed a taste for the addictive sport of signature collecting, and so the best thing we took from the premiere was our first collection of Game of Thrones signatures. You can see a short video below with the pictures of our selfies with the stars!
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