Official Ascendio Announcement

[heidi]

Plans are being made…

Time is moving forward…

Take flight…

Ascendio 2012 will be held from July 12-15, 2012 at the Loews Portofino Bay Hotel at Universal
Orlando®, the home of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter®.

Many people have asked if Infinitus would be the last event for HPEF. After a great deal of deliberation, it
was decided that we’ re not ready to give up our conferences quite yet! We’ re very excited – not just about
returning to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, but also about the events we’ re planning, the Portofino
Bay Hotel, and seeing all of you once again. There will be a short break between Infinitus and Ascendio
2012, which will be a smaller event in keeping with HPEF’s educational mission and the more intimate
atmosphere of the conference hotel.

The conference theme, “Take flight…” suggests many aspects of the Harry Potter series: owls,
broomsticks, Thestrals, Buckbeak, dragons; the Flight of the Prince; Voldemort’ s fleeing from death;
traveling through time with the Time-Turner… Flight can have positive or negative connotations, but it is
certainly a major theme in the Harry Potter series. Therefore, our formal and informal programming will
focus on journeys through time and space, particularly those that involve flight.

Ascendio 2012 is in the very preliminary stages of planning, but the organizers and staff will continue in
the footsteps of the previous seven events and bring you both the outstanding academic and non-academic
events that you’ ve come to expect from an HPEF symposium. And, of course, we also plan on having
Wrock, Quidditch, an Art Gallery, podcasts, and much, much more.

At this time we’ re looking to fill chair positions. For those of you with experience in past events, please
email us at ascendio2012 @ gmail.com (without spaces) to let us know that you’re interested in a chair position.

Further information about events, volunteer opportunities, hotel information, registration details, and news
about the event will be on the web site, forums, Twitter and this Community as information becomes available. Feel free
to stop by and sign-up for our newsletter.