Butterbeer, potions all part of Harry Potter week

Didn’t get an invitation to Hogwarts? Nordy’s will offer its own version this week.

Harry… Didn’t get an invitation to Hogwarts? Nordy’s will offer its own version this week.

Harry Potter Week begins tonight at Nordy’s Place, in the lower level of the William Pitt Union. A different Harry Potter movie will play every night except for Tuesday, when SGB holds its meeting in Nordy’s Place.

Student Affairs coordinated the week-long event partly because it wanted to use Nordy’s Place more — and also because the books and films are immensely popular amongst college students.

The Harry Potter series is now a multi-billion dollar franchise that has become entrenched in pop culture. Many students have grown up with the books and movies.

Pitt lecturer Rodney Nelson, whose field of interest includes sociology of literature, said that popular culture phenomena, such as the Harry Potter series, occur for different reasons. He said some become fads that attain a “bandwagon effect,” or the phenomenon of a popular trend continuing to gain popularity. Advertising and word of mouth get other people to latch on to the latest craze.

“But what will succeed is rarely known in advance,” Nelson said.

The “Harry Potter” series expanded beyond the seven-book series into an eight-part movie series, supplemental books, video games, a theme park and toys such as fake wands and time-turners.

“There are forms of ‘cultural capital’ that one can acquire as a fan and use as a means of displaying one’s status relative to others,” Nelson said. “This can feed on itself and become obsessional in some cases.”

The Harry Potter movie series has brought in more than $6 billion worldwide, according to Warner Brothers, the studio that puts out the films.

For those unable to make the trip to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando, Fla., Nordy’s Place will serve its own rendition of Butter Beer, a nonalcoholic drink, during showtimes.

The first showing of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” will begin at 6 p.m. today, then a potions tasting will take place before the movie is shown again at 8 p.m.

Dragon’s Snot, a potion students can make during the activity, might not sound appetizing, but it will be a mixture of green sherbet and Sprite.Friday’s event will include a costume contest along with food and beverages based on the Harry Potter series.

Students can also challenge their taste buds with a Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans eating contest. Among traditional jelly bean flavors like bubble gum and strawberry, Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans slips in unusual flavors like bogey, dirty sock and sardine.

Pitt’s FeelGood World Chapter will sell grilled cheese sandwiches at its usual time of 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Thursday and during the Prisoner of Azkaban showing from 8 to 10 p.m. that night.

The nonprofit group that raises money to fight world hunger will rename its regular sandwiches, giving them Harry Potter-themed titles for the event.

The Mexican-themed “Feel Bueno” will be the “Red Hot Hermione,” and the traditional grilled cheese will be called the “The Cheese Who Lived.”

The suggested donation is eight Sickles, a wizarding world currency, but Muggles, or nonmagic people, can still pay $3.

The organization’s president, Alyssa Weisenesse, said that she was excited to have FeelGood World participate in the event because she loves Harry Potter, as do several of the other members.

When the first part of the seventh film premiered last fall, the group had Harry Potter-themed sandwiches and had Pitt’s Quidditch team deliver them on broomsticks.

“That was one of our most successful events,” Weisenesse said.

Although Weisenesse is excited for Harry Potter Week, she is concerned about how midterms will affect the event.

John Hoehn, assistant manager of the William Pitt Union, said that activities have been spread out so that students can come and participate when they have time or want to relax.

“The reason that we did it now is that February is such a difficult month,” said Lauren Merclean, also an assistant manager of the William Pitt Union. “Spring break’s around the corner, and leading up to midterms, people are really stressed out and we wanted to do something fun.”

Harry Potter week has been in the planning process for about a month. The staff that runs the William Pitt Union, including the students, helped work out the details.

Merclean said the idea for Harry Potter Week came up when a group of employees met to discuss events they could hold in Nordy’s Place Nordy’s Place.

“We really wanted to see more students programs in Nordy’s,” Merclean said. “Nordy’s is a really cool space for students, and I don’t think it’s utilized as well as it could be, and so what we want to do is come up with some fresh ideas to get students to use Nordy’s.”