This morning, Scholastic took over Manhattan’s Mercer Street and turned the block between Prince and Spring Streets into “Harry Potter Place.” The traffic diversion is to celebrate the impending release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
The festivities kicked off with an 8AM press conference, at which Scholastic CEO Dick Robinson presented the Knight Bus (see below), and then led a reunion of past Harry Potter essay contest winners. Then six children carried out signed first editions of the first six novels to place them in the Pensieve. They were followed by J.K. Rowling’s US editor, Arthur Levine, who had the first signed US copy of the seventh novel, which was placed in the center (under lock and key). And they started the official countdown clock to the 12:01AM release of Deathly Hallows.
Following the brief ceremony, the media feeding frenzy took over. There were at least a dozen television crews running around filming and interviewing (I saw former New York Giant Tiki Barber interviewing Arthur Levine live for NBC’s Today—Levine grumbled good-naturedly that holding the locked plexigass box containing the new book was tiring his arms). There were also dozens of Scholastic employees wearing “Harry Potter Reunion 2007” T-shirts.
I got a chance to interview Levine for SFScope, and asked him if the publication of the final novel might be a bit of a let-down, after having been so intimately involved in the series for so long. He replied that it wasn’t a disappointment, and the feeling of “ending” hadn’t yet sunk in. But on the up side, he noted that “there will always be new generations of readers. Imagine ten-year-olds ten years from now. For them, it will be completely new.” He also noted that Harry Potter isn’t the be-all and end-all of Scholastic, and that he’s excited about the upcoming Book of Time by Guillaume Prevost, which he thinks may be the next big thing (it’s a time travel series about which he’s very excited). Levine also had high praises to sing about Shaun Tan’s upcoming The Arrival, which is “a wordless graphic novel.”
Following the interviewing, the press conference setting was rearranged for the Nasdaq opening. Scholastic is a Nasdaq listed stock (SCHL), and today, the exchange moved its opening for its usual Times Square studio to Harry Potter Place. The opening festivities started with Nasdaq Vice President Marabelle Aber giving the crowd a rundown of what was happening. She was followed by Nasdaq CFO David Warren, who discussed Scholastic’s growth, from a brand new company in 1922, to their initial public offering on 25 February 1992, at which time they had net revenues of $443 million and 3,100 employees, to today when SCHL has net revenues of $2.2 billion and more than 16,000 employees. Then Warren introduced Dick Robinson to the viewing audience. Robinson said “Harry Potter has given us the opportunity to share the spotlight on books and reading,” and he quoted a Scholastic study which found that more than 50% of Harry Potter readers hadn’t read for fun before picking up the series, but that now, more than three-quarters of those do. At 9:30 on the dot, Robinson pushed the button to officially open trading.
If you’re in New York City, and looking for some company with which to spend the last few hours waiting to get your hands on the new book, Harry Potter Place is open to the public from 5PM until after midnight tonight. In addition to the Knight Bus (a replica of the “violently purple” triple decker from the books, in which fans can make a brief video talking about the series), there’s also a Muggle Board, where fans can write personal mesages, a twenty-foot tall Whomping Willow, jugglers, entertainers, magicians, and other activities, in addition, of course, to like-minded companionship.