By now you may have heard that Chestnut Hill puts on a big Harry Potter Festival. This year's festivities will be held the weekend of October 21-22nd. HavertowniesHQ attended the festival in its fledgling early years. This will be the first year they shut down the street to auto traffic. The event is also getting some widespread press. We suspect it will be quite big. But guess what? We're going to have our own Harry Potter coolness right here in the Township! AND with lots of parking. Haverford High School Senior Jack McGovern started his own 501c3 non profit Quidditch league and there will be a free admission, open-to-the-public day-long college Quidditch tournament at Haverford College on Saturday October 8th! (Haverford Township Day is the weekend before, October 1, 2016).       Here's a bonus: If any of your university-bound Harry Potter fans are interested in any of the institutions participating (Rutgers, Villanova, Virginia), this tourney could be a good time to talk to some of that college's students. Think about it - fun atmosphere, honest feedback. But what a fun event for the little ones, too! Free to go, easy to park (see the parking directions to the South Lot here). There will be some snacks available but bring your own food and drink if you want something more substantial. This is will be a great way to connect with the fandom and see a once-fictional, very exciting sport in real life. And it was all arranged by one of our own. Here's a note from Jack McGovern on how he got into this whole thing: "Real-life quidditch, which was adapted from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books in 2005, is a co-ed, contact sport that incorporates elements of rugby, basketball and dodge ball. The 8 teams at the tournament will be some of the best college quidditch teams in the country including Villanova, Rutgers, North Carolina and Virginia. I went to my first quidditch tournament as a sixth grade student at Haverford Middle … [Read more...]