Tour overview

Warning: Long blog.

I really don't know where to start with this. The original idea was to do little daily blogs and even vlogs from the road whilst traveling but schedule and the immense tiredness that came with doing the tour just took all the spare time and energy from me. So instead of that I thought I would write this big overview blog and try to remember everything important or interesting that may of happened whilst being on the wander.


The start: November 2nd - Start point: Durham  End point: Glasgow

What I expected to be a straight forward day turned into a nightmare. I woke to messages that people cannot connect to the websites. I had about a maximum of 30 minutes to look into this whilst getting ready and making sure I had everything. I spent about 10 minutes checking the account and all seemed to be working and payments were up to date, so I was puzzled. Realising I really had no time to spend chasing this, I had to pass everything onto mojo and pretty much just leave it to him.
After dashing around, I was on my way to the train station in Durham. With a suitcase and huge canvass prints in tow, I attempted to get to the platform without dropping anything. The train had a slight delay of only 10 minutes so I just stood waiting for it. Once on the train it took me an age to find somewhere to put my luggage as they all seemed to be full in the carriage I was booked in. After walking 3 carriages down I had success then headed back to Coach F to take my seat. When I arrived there was a child in my seat, the mother who was sitting on the other side said she is sorry and someone had taken their seats. I let it go just because it was a child, but the mother was too shy to ask the people in her sons seat to move. A seat cleared up after the next station, though it was a backwards traveling seat in a red hot carriage with no air.
I tend to suffer from motion sickness, so whenever possible I get forward facing to reduce the risk that I would suffer any symptoms.
For 3 hours I sat in this chair practically sweating but lucky for me as I was starting to feel unwell, we stopped at Edinburgh and about 3/4 of the carriage emptied. I used this opportunity to jump to a cooler forward facing seat for the last hour or so of the journey.
Alex and his sister met me at the station and I unloaded the canvas prints onto Alex to carry. At his we made dinner then drew the winners of the British fan club's meet and greet competition. Alex had said winners would of been announced at around 5pm, since I didn't get to Alex's till around 4:40, this obviously didn't happen on time. After we drew the winners we thought it would be a good idea to call them and record some of the reactions to a pre-tour vlog we had planned to film that night.
Calling everyone was great,  but it took a lot longer than I expected. I think our last calls were around 8:20..nearly 3 and a half hours after Alex's announcement deadline. Oh well.
After the winners were all called and dinner was ate, we set to work on filming the rest of the club vlog. It ended up quite random due to the Jack Daniels that was flowing, but all in all it turned out nice and was well received.


Day 2: November 3nd - Start point: Glasgow  End point: Manchester

This was the day of the Nightwish fan party to be held at the Hard Rock Cafe in Manchester. We travelled about 5 hours on bus from Glasgow to Manchester. Horrible journey. No leg room, really hot and stuffy. We were met by a friend Nikki, someone I've been speaking to online since roughly 2008 but this would be the first time meeting her, which of course was nice. We arrived at our hotel about 45 minutes before the event was due to start so we just thought we would get food when we were there. Fat chance! It was packed solid. Lucky we spotted Jeanette and her friend and we managed to claim a large table to the site of the bar. Others started to arrive and it became obvious that we were in for a nice evening. We did eventually get some food but decided not to touch the alcohol that night due to the lateness of when we ate.
I think around 20-25 people came and even some internationals which was real nice to have.

Day 3: November 4th -Manchester

I woke not feeling 100%. I put it down to eating too late the night before, being tired and the stress of not yet having our meet and greet schedule and being unable to contact anyone about it. I finally heard from Ewo with times so I could go ahead and tell everyone.
We headed to the venue around 4, it was freezing cold and we were all pretty much huddled together trying to keep warm. Lucky for me I got a sms from Ewo inviting me inside for a coffee and chat. I did feel bad leaving the guys in the cold but since I had stuff to sort out I jumped at the chance to get warm. I had Tuomas and Floor both say hi as I went in. Tuomas was shocked that I had my hair cut short and of course this was my first time meeting Floor. In the brief 30 seconds first impressions were good.
I had my coffee and sorted out a few things, then  I stole a 2nd cup to take upstairs to Alex along with his pass for the tour.
I then got the call to bring the meet and greeters to the meeting point, then annoyingly security decided they were going to be right arses and not let the guys in. There was even an outside courtyard and still no. Tuomas said he didn't care and walked past security into the street to meet them and soon the rest followed. The guys managed to get things signed and photos took but then the queue noticed the band and also came down to join in. The band stayed 5 extra minutes and me and Alex went around apologising for security, of course it was out of our hands and even the managements.
So meet and greet was not perfect but not a failure, so we picked our heads up and headed off inside. We went to the dressing room to have a drink and warm up. I asked if we could stay 5 minutes to warm up, it ended up being most the night till they were due to get ready to go on stage. Floor introduced herself more, quickly followed by "there is a female here now, wait", she went out of the dressing room and into her own returning with a new pair of boots to show me and show her matching nail polish. Must admit the shoes were fantastic and I'm not one of these girls who goes crazy other clothes and shoes.
She brought in a Finnish book as well and had Tuomas going through it with her. He started reading some vowel examples out and kept saying, we don't say it like this, this is crazy, saying the sentences outloud causing the others in the room to laugh with the content of the book. Then we noticed her notes looked a bit chewed, she admitted 'her dog did actually eat her homework'.
Ice broken and shattered, we headed off to find somewhere to stand for the show. It was warm inside, too warm. The amount of people + the heating was left on was too much. I kept having to leave the venue to try and cool down. I managed to catch the last two songs, Ghost Love 'Floor' and Last Ride Of The Day before heading upstairs to grab my bag and get back to the hotel to rest.
As I got to the top of the stairs near the dressing room, it felt like someone had stabbed me in the stomach. The pain went through my whole body and it was horrible. Tuomas, Marco and Troy all made sure I was okay and said to keep them informed. Being tired etc just aided the illness hit me so hard. We ended up back at the hotel around 3am and had about 3 hours sleep max before we had to get up to catch the train.

Day 4: November 5th - Start point: Manchester  End point: London

The train to London wasn't too bad even though I still was not 100%. We were not in a hotel in London, but accepted the warm invitation of Sam to stay at her place. To make it easier we just took our bags to the venue and put them in the dressing room to get when we left to save a trip to Sam's and back into the city.
We met up with the other 2 British club admins and went to Nando's for lunch. I ate as much as I could stomach, Chris being a gentleman and not leaving any waste, finished my second wrap half.  This time when we got the call for the meet and greet to start it was so much better. Security led the guys into the hall and I went to fetch the band. It went down a lot better then Manchester because they were inside and it was easier to chat and get photos etc.
I went to meet up with Pip and Sam Williams, leaving Alex with the club who wanted to be on the barrier. I didn't think it'd be a wise move for me and my stomach to risk getting squashed. We joined on the side with a good view after Pain finished their set. I must say the London show was phenomenal. At this point it was the best Nightwish show I had ever seen. The crowd went nuts on Ghost Love 'Floor', much to the surprise of the band, who actually took some steps back in disbelief.
After the show, we headed upstairs only to open the door and see Adrian Edmondson. Of course Troy plays in a band with him, but was just a shock to see him backstage laughing with Troy and Marko. I didn't talk to him really, he just made a witty remark when I tried to dodge him while carrying my case out of a crowded room.

We left the band all really happy and went to get our taxi to Sam's place. I had a great nights sleep there and started to feel healthy again. It was a relief as I had fears that I wouldn't of been able to continue the tour.

Day 5: November 6th - Start point: London  End point: Birmingham

Sam dropped us off at the train station after we fought with her sat nav and wondering where it was trying to take us.When we arrived in Birmingham, we were greeted by TH.com team member Liz who helped us find our hotel. Unfortunately the map printed off had marked the incorrect place, so we walked for ages trying to find it. In the end we got a taxi and it was in a run down area of the city and looked like a dump. When we checked in we saw the prices of the rooms and thought that we had a bargain as we paid about a third of the price. Walking out the lift towards our room proved different. The corridor stunk and looked like it was from a prison block. Our room was just big enough for the 2 single beds and the shower....well I dared not use it. It was black with mold and the whole room stunk of smoke. Frantically I got changed and was glad to get out the room and go for some food and down to the venue.
Of course we ended up in the most important place, a bar, with Roz and Sean from the UK fan club. Roz gets the nickname "Stella" online, and because of this we just had to get a picture:

The Birmingham security were good, we managed to get all the meet and greeters inside next to the dressing room and all the guys (except Troy), came out to sign and take pictures with everyone. Roz made each member their own cake, something the band adored (more on this later)

When the meet and greeters were took inside the venue, I went into the dressing room to see Jukka eating the cake with a bottle top as if a spoon. He said he loved it and would eat the rest later.

Floor then caught us and asked if we were prepared to do the interview with her now. Well we were kind of prepared but not fully so I had to borrow Floor's camera to record the interview as I had not brought mine thinking we would not have time to do it tonight. The whole thing went great and she was so lovely, we would have to bring the laptop the next night to get the footage off her camera.
Floor the joined us in going out to watch some of Pain. When she left to get ready,  we went to join the fanclub near the stage. We were not in the best place for sound but we got a good view and I got some okay pictures. Samples:

 After the show we went backstage for a few drinks. They had some guests and the tiny dressing room once again ended up packed solid. I had a drink poured by Ewo which was practically 3/4 vodka and 1/4 orange :) That one drink got my drunk, and I'm not embarrassed to say. I had some laughs with Emppu who claimed a gift from the UK club (a JD box) and said 'if it fits in my case it's mine' then proceeded to grin when his case closed without issue. Tero of course was a hoot, making rude gestures behind me, but it was just all fun.
After we left we met up again with Roz and Sean and decided that a late night snack was in order. We wondered around about 20 minutes before finding a kebab shop and thought it would do. After some good laughs and actually some okay food which sobered me up, we called it a night.

Day 6: November 7th - Start point: Birmingham  End point: Glasgow

We left early morning, thank god! Was great to get out of that hotel. We arrived at the train station and promptly boarded our train North. Settling down to try and sleep as much of the journey as possible nearly worked. I got a few hours sleep waking with about an hour to go. In  Glasgow we went back to Alex's flat and just relaxed. We had a couple of hours to get things ready to take to the show for signing, including the large canvas prints. Typically it had started to rain when we left and I was worried that the canvas prints would get wet.

When we arrived at the venue, the band were doing soundcheck so we used that opportunity to dump our stuff inside and then go back out to talk to people in the queue. We stood with them around 30 minutes but whilst outside in the rain, a puddle had gathered on the road behind me, meaning when a bus went passed I got soaked. My hair was dripping and it went down my boots wetting my socks. I decided enough was enough and went inside. Floor had sympathy for my new wet look and I dried myself off the best I could. The product in my hair went horrible when wet so I decided to wash it. The band mentioned once more about Roz's cakes and wanted to thank her again. So we decided to give her a call. I put her on speaker phone and the band spoke to her giving her thanks once more.
I sat and watched Floor and the guys playing poker dice, a fun looking game which small amounts of money is gambled and the tune of Raiders Of The Lost Ark was sung by them all when a specific combination was rolled. The first time I had witnessed this was in London, where I was sat next to Tuomas recovering from being ill the night before and all a sudden they burst into song, slapping their legs in time. I nearly jumped out my seat!
I happened to mention that I was planning to go in the photographer pit to take some pictures as I was not aware till the night before that the pass I had granted that ability. Floor then said I can use her camera as the quality is so much better than my crappy little compact digital. Paranoid about using a dslr for the first time, and it not being mine. I agreed but I never let go of it throughout the songs we could photograph. In the end, I still managed to lose the lens cap. I have no idea how I did it as I remember putting it back on the camera after the final song. I guess I did not clip it in place properly and it must of dropped back off as I walked back to the dressing room to put her camera back. I felt so bad about this, sure accidents happen but when someone who barely knows you trusts you, you just feel like you let them down. Floor was lovely about it though, and I planned to buy a replacement the next day.
The meet and greet for here ended up being the end of the show due to scheduling. Ewo was due to lead us all down but he had to leave and said the security girl would help. So when I approached security they would not let them down. They said they needed passes. She would not even let me down to grab someone with an escorting pass, so all we could do is stand and get in the way of the load out while we waiting for Ewo to return.
In the end it all worked out and the guys were ushered down the tiny stairs into the tiny, hot dressing room. I grabbed the band one by one as we had a meet and greeter in a wheel chair waiting outside. Annoyingly enough, the location didn't have good wheelchair access and this was all we could arrange. At least she got to meet them. However earlier in the day I 'paid' Tuomas my outstanding bet loss of some very nice whisky and by the end of the night he was swaying. I took him down the stairs to meet this girl outside and typically he nearly fell, causing me to catch him and pulling my arm. Rather that than him fall completely over, however funny it may have been.
End of the tour done we headed back to Alex's place and waited about an hour for a taxi in the cold wet night. When we got in, we both pretty much crashed out as we were both so tired.

Day 7: November 8th - Glasgow - Day off

I woke early as I had to go into town and get Floor a new lens cap and get it to her before they left. I knocked on Alex's door to no response, so I decided I would venture out into Glasgow on my own. I got a taxi to the camera store who's shop keepers were helpful and I managed to get a new cover. Next I had to find the hotel. It looked far on the map so I got a taxi after about 10 minutes of searching for one. Time was pressing on when we arrived at the Hilton. I asked the taxi driver to wait as I only planned to leave the cap at reception for her to collect on check-out. This is when I found out there are more than one Hilton hotels in Glasgow. Frantically I made a phone call and found out which Hilton she meant. I got back in the taxi and we left to the next location. This time I had a queue at reception to wait in and with a taxi on the meter outside, I was anxious to get going. Lucky this time it was the correct hotel. Lens cap left and taxi back to Alex's, it was time to sit and do nothing. Pizza and movies and sleep were on the cards, with a little bit of laundry to do before we needed to pack before our flight in the morning.



Day 8/9: November 9th/10th - Start place: Glasgow - End Place: Helsinki

We left around 06:30 to the airport to catch our flight to Amsterdam and then onto Helsinki. We were in good spirits and got plenty rest the day before and our plane was on time so things were looking positive. We landed in Helsinki at 17:20 local time and that's when things went pear shaped. Alex (who last trip to Finland lost his wallet- and yes he will kill me for mentioning this) was now faced with no luggage. KLM apologised and said they would get it to him on the night or the next morning at the latest.  Not the end of the world we thought.
We arrived at our hotel and then met with our friends for dinner at a restaurant called The Seahorse. It was really nice food and we ended the night at a bar till around 2am. We didn't have to be up early the next day so we just enjoyed ourselves and laughed how a round of drinks cost 25e each (4 drinks). So after we spent 100e in total between us, we called it a night and walked to the hotel passing the beautiful cathedral and I had to get a picture.

The next day we missed breakfast but stayed in the hotel for lunch. It was the same restaurant Tuomas took me when I met him last year and I ate the same thing as it was gorgeous, Salmon Soup. 2 huge filets of Salmon with potatoes and loads of buttery creamy soup. I believe the restaurant is Michellin accredited so perhaps that's why it's so good.
When it was time to head to the arena, we got a few of us to share a taxi. Once there of course we made our way to the bar and again  we were shocked with the prices. A vodka and orange came to just over 9euro! And the Nightwish wine was 7euro a glass of 48 euro a bottle. So a few drinks later and it was show time!
I loved seeing Nightwish in the UK with the small venues and intimate feeling, but this night with the screen and the pyro was just amazing. Floor was on form again and all the guys looked so happy and content. Floor's specially made outfit looked really nice and very fitting for the evening.
Arabesque featured some kind of fire dancers, I presume were booked when the night was originally going to be the full album but of course singer change caused this idea to be cancelled. Although they were okay, I would of preffered another song by Nightwish in the set than these. Pekka being onstage with his violin was really fun. It added something to the songs and stage and was something unexpected.
This night was my 10th time seeing Nightwish live and I think it was the best, closely followed by London.

Then we had to leave so they could put down the seats. Of course we went to the bar and had a shot of Salmiakkikoitso. Love this stuff. We had good seats for the movie although the temperature dropped pretty fast. My neck was aching a bit from looking up at the screen but it was enjoyable. It's something I will have to watch again as I kept finding myself concentrating on the music more than the movie itself at times. All in all, it was a great night.
In typical Ewo fashion he had forgot the wristband needed to get into the after show. Lucky Sam helped out by grabbing Tuomas who was able to help. The Backstage Bar was packed of familiar faces. It was great saying hi to people I had not seen in ages, or ones I spoke to online but never met in person. Marianne spoke with us for quite some time and was a real angel. Everyone was so accommodation and nice to each other. I didn't want to stay too long as had some stuff to do in the morning. I went to say goodbye to people and then left with Tuomas and Johanna who were also leaving.
I set some of my videos to upload over night and went straight to sleep. It's amazing how much energy I was using up by all this travelling.
Videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheEscapistofficial/videos?view=0

Day 10: November 11th - Start place: Helsinki - End Place: Kitee

I caught my train to Kitee at 4pm. Whilst on the train I heard them say the stops and I nearly panicked as I thought I was on the wrong one. Little did I know that the train splits in two later down the route and half goes to Joensuu and the other half somewhere else. Panic over I sat to start this blog, but after an hour I could feel my eyes getting tired so I set an alarm and tried to sleep.
Plamen met me at the station and brought me to this apartment I would be spending the couple of nights. It's really nice and even has a personal sauna (not used yet).
I decided to have an early night as I had cold symptoms and wanted to be healthy for the net day of meeting with Tuomas, Kiti, Penna and Katharina.
But I'll write a whole blog on this event on it's own :) Photo teasers below.

Thank you for reading this monster...more to come!

Carol 'Joulu' Walker

Random updates are best

Not much to discuss but I'm sitting a little bored. I do have work to do but I am trying to have at least 1 day off a week- and today was once I said I won't work today. Besides I'm not feeling creative so I will start on a few things tomorrow.
However I've had a productive last few weeks, The Islanders is now finished and launched and all we need now are a few more sign ups so we can order the rest of the merchandise. The official launch will be in London on September 3rd, should be a good laugh, we have a few people confirmed coming so far. It was good fun when we had the TH gathering in the same place.
While in London I'll also have a catch up with Pip Williams. Lot of people know him for being the orchestrator on the last 3 NW albums. Going to do bit of an interview too which to my knowledge has never been done by a NW website before. I was lucky enough to meet him when I went to London to meet up with T.
Tuomas sent over the Kiteen Pallo theme, it doesn't give much insight into Imaginarium's sound but its something which has fans excited about. Funny thing is everyone is still "omg is 6 months away".. I think they forget there is a single in Oct/Nov so its more closer to 3 months.
Speaking of Tuomas, I'm a little disappointed in the lack of usable art work we have for the birthday project at present. I think people think his birthday is not till December so we have plenty time, only thing is they fail to realise that the amount of time to design the overall booklet and get it sent for printing will also take some time. Hopefully the mass mail/messages to the pro quality artists will bring some results. Times like this, I wish I was good at art myself.

Well I can't think of any other things to write about so I'll leave it there for now,

Peace!

Thanks to all.... Tuomas - Kersantti - Anette

Well I guess I should update and start with a big thanks for all the support towards the new Tuomas site.
It's taking a lot of work and still have the translations to add to the site but it's not too far from being 100% finished (as long as the translators are fast with what I throw at them hah).
Few people have asked why I decided to make a new site. Well I have reasons I won't go into and I have other reasons: I got comments from people that it did not look official, it looked like a fan site. Ok "technically" it is a fan site, as it's run by "fans" (some of us don't like that term).. however it ceased being a fan site once we were made official. Also since it used to be a fansite, it never lost that feel to me, looking at the same layout (ok it was changed a little) and basic look.
Another change was to distance Tuomas from Nightwish. Okay some people will scream at me here with "he IS Nightwish!"...yes I know this only too well. I did intend to mirror Nightwish.coms look (kind of did by adding the Imaginarium background on the 'blue site: mk 3') but the more I thought about it the more I thought "why have 'another' Nightwish.com?" So I thought a bit more about what I can do, what is the best action to take with it. Of course a thing that keeps coming to me is Tuomas does have his own projects, and one day Nightwish will be a past project of his. But Tuomas quitting music completley won't happen, and because of that I hope we will still be around. So I decided to go for a general look, something simple yet dynamic. So with design changes thrown at Mojo for criticism (trust me you cannot get a better person to be critical about your work) I worked on a basic structure and then added the design elements on top.
The banner was the hardest to think up. The "logo" started as an idea of a wolf silhouette with a TH or Tuomas over it... this idea lasted about 2-3 hours then binned. Then the banner had Tuomas' image in... this was binned after 10 mins of being on the site. Mojo was the one who mentioned Tuomas' autograph, so I went through some promo's I have and picked the easiest to see and scanned it in. For around 2 hours I sat and cut it out practically pixel by pixel..can anyone say hand cramp?! However I think the final look came out cool, so kudos to Mojo for thinking of that one.

The best part is only the TH Team knew this rebuild was happening, and I didn't inform them until about 60% through construction. I decided to keep it a secret from the members as I didn't know how long it would take me to put live.. or even if I would at all. It's a scary thing to have to replace a successful website, I especially did not want to damage the forum in anyway and for us to lose all those member and posts. I also was not going to launch the site till all languages were 100% complete. But typical thing would be that it would put me into August, which is when Imaginiarium gets mastered and the film shootings not far away. Meaning there is a chance for updates, so I would be constantly playing catch up with news and translations of. I also wanted to wait and get the thumbs up from the boss (Tuomas) since the site bares his name, however his vacation time is tearing him away from his macbook. So it was Mojo who suggested a earlier launch time and just add the translations etc as we go, and I think it worked well. The big worry of so many hours work and the database transfer failing would of annoyed me anyway.
So we went live and apart from a few little bugs, it was pretty smooth. A couple of people have mentioned 1 issue with colour on an area of the forum.. so far investigations have shown this to be a browser problem and not one with the site. Both myself, Mojo and others on the Team went through and checked everything on every browser. So people with issues, try emptying your cache and check if there is a browser update: last one especially for internet explorer users.
But here we are going strong and getting 90% positive messages, which is a larger percent than I ever expected. So big thanks to everyone for that. Of course we are plotting more things for the future with the site.

At the time I was updating TH, I was also working on my PR and promotion company: Kersantti presence management. So I have the site pretty much done for there and I've started on heavier promotion of the existence of it. Anette Olzon gave permission to promote her new fabulous solo demos, which has gave a big boost so thanks to her. The company has a long way to go, lets just hope it's journey is fruitful.

Talking about Anette's demos, both sound so different to a lot of what we have heard Anette sing before. You can hear the keys in Dark Passion Play were probably not the strongest keys for her to sing in. Although DPP was great, these solos really show the true emotion and ability of her voice.

Floating: A gentle song which actually makes you feel like you are floating if you close your eyes and listen to it.
Very beautiful, light and gave me goosebumps.

Invincible: My personal favourite of the two. I believe her voice in this has such a great timbre, very elegant sounding.

Both tracks show her true potential as a singer although only demos we can see this, the main music is the only thing that lets them down.. but that's demo's for you. The quality of the recording/mixing etc is not what you would use on a final mix. This defiantly wets the appetite for the amazing Imaginarium once more, but also has people excited for Anette's eventual solo album.
Good luck to her, TH.com and Kersantti will be giving her support.


I have a lot on and a lot of responsibility coming up, but as long as the attitude of myself and the team currently have continues, I think our future will be bright.

So lets all have a laugh together in this journey
...Carol

Work pays off...

Well after months of plotting the idea, then weeks of organising... the chat is finally over. Now don't get me wrong 'finally' is not meant in a way to express I've been waiting for it to finish, far from it. It just took up a lot of time and checking and re-checking. To organise a relatively small number of members (when look at our overall member count) was quite a challenge. Getting 40 people from different timezones all online at the correct time and in the correct place definitely took more work than expected. I'm just glad Steff was on hand helping out with the IRC members.
The idea for using the chat room for fan interaction was brought up in London back in February, Tuomas expressed an interest then but was a little skeptical of it. Few month later I managed to persuade him to come to the chat room, pretty much everyone who was online the night he came were people who were part of the team. This helped his first visit as but him more at ease I think, but he still really enjoyed it and vowed to return again.
In a discussion with Steff about what things can be done in the future, the idea to pursue the online fan interaction came back up. We planned out how it could be done and discussed it between the two of us until we decided it could work and be successful. I then took the idea to Tuomas, who without any persuasion agreed. We discussed with him the best way to go about it, and that rewarding our community was a way to reduce the 1000's of people who would want to participate. Tuomas agreed that this special first should be shared with his community.
This decision did however come with criticism, however only from 1 nation. We had pretty much no complaints or problems from anyone else. These people believed we should have had the chat open for everybody or do something so any Nightwish fan had the chance to be involved. Of course we totally understood  why his nation was upset but some refused to also see it from our point of view.
If we had an 'open chat room' (or the tinychat/cam whatever it was they suggested) arrangement there is no physically way the chat server would of supported the amount of people, also there is no way Tuomas could of accommodated questions from that many. There is also no way it would of been possible to police that many members at once, it would not of worked smoothly.
If we did the lottery that someone there suggested to pick fans, again this was too hard to do for many factors. The dates Tuomas gave me for the chat meant we did not have a lot of time to get the participants organised to attend. If we released a NW community wide invitation, I would have 1000's of emails in my inbox to sort through, get rid of people sending more than 1 entry etc. There is just noway we would have the time to do such a thing.
In the end we stood our ground and kept it for TH.com, of course people were welcome to join the chat room and be active there for a chance to be involved too. A few people did and a couple made it into the event. End of the day Tuomas agreed with the arrangement we had set-up and he understood the reasoning behind it, therefore he supported us so there was no need to change.
Something people needed to understand too is this was going to be Tuomas 3rd ever time in a chat room, the first being what I mentioned earlier, the second was a quick meeting with myself and Steff to discuss the event details. He had never done anything like this, it was a Nightwish first also. We had to make sure it ran as smooth as possible so Tuomas would agree to return and do more events in the future. If we risked failure, he may not of been so keen to return.
However in the end it went swimmingly, all but 2 members showed up; no one needed to be removed from the chat for rule breaking. Tuomas was very impressed with the organisation and the behaviour of the fans there, once again the community at TH.com makes us proud. It's no wonder Tuomas is so gracious to work with me and do things for the fans there.
We tried to discuss some more future ideas after the chat ended, but due to time he had to leave. So he got a nice email last night outlining plans and plots for the future. So fans have no need to worry, these events are not a one off. We will continue to work closely with Tuomas to bring the best we can to all at TH.com.

So just a huge thank you to everyone for the continued support towards this website and Tuomas' work

-Carol & Tuomas

To read the transcript of the 4 hour chat, visit the website.

Amazing friends

After having a very crappy fortnight with an ill son, website issues etc I needed a pick me up. Now the common joke in the NW circle is Fazer chocolate.. which I have now run out of *Hint to Cyntia!* However one of my friends sent me something in the mail which I got yesterday which is so nice and thoughtful.

Funny-ish sorry how I came to know him:

I met this guy called Alex via Nightwish UK, starting talking to him and offered my services if he needed any help in the future. It was around this time the first Escapist draft hit the net and as publicity I contacted John Two Hawks for an interview. Being the kind of person I am, I opened the questions to the members of Nightwish UK. Now Alex fully supported the idea while another admin did not, the mods were told to keep an eye on me and "this Tuomas fansite". I think she thought I was a bit of a crackpot (maybe I am...who knows).
Fortunatly Alex gave me the benefit of the doubt of not being some crazy fangirl and got to know me. Who would of thought those 2 or so years ago I would now be Tuomas' administrator of his official website and working alongside Alex in the Nightwish UK rebuild: The Islanders :) Funny how things work out. Lesson to be learned here, not everyone is some crazy "fangirl//nutter" give them the benefit of the doubt and talk to them before judging... you just never know who they really are or what they can achieve.

Anyway moving on to what I got in the mail. Alex is aware my Nightwish collection is a little lacking due to an ex and my giving nature to donate cd's etc to fans rather than keep myself. He knows I recently acquired Tuomas' lyrics to his first song "Nightwish", and that I no longer had Angels Fall First in my collection. Binding the two together he bought and sent me the collectors edition which contains the song "Nightwish" on it. Thank you Alex, such a thoughtful gift. He's coming down to where I live next week also so that will be fun, we call it a coffee and a brewski... other may call it Islanders Admin meeting :P

It was very kind of Tuomas to give me these lyrics and dare I say I had never listened to the song prior to owning these. So it was only a few weeks ago I heard the song for the first time and it was even more emotional for me to listen to it, since I could read through Tuomas' lyrics and see how he writes and his lyrics come to life on the page; rather than text on a screen or lyrics in a booklet.

I've started my Finnish studies again, I have acquired a little extra time and been practising what little Finnish I know on Plamen over the bast few days of chatting. Which leads me nicely into his interview, which is now on the website :) Some very beautiful words about our Ocean Soul on there.

And speaking of Tuomas, make sure you get to/register on our forums to see our plans for him for his birthday and Christmas.. it's going to be really special. But of course huge thanks to Kirsti Nortia-Holopainen (Tuomas' Mother) for helping me out big style with his Christmas gift, I was struggling with this but it would of spoiled the surprise for me to have asked him myself.

Well I have a free day today, no child as my Mother has him today. I do have a few translations to add to the website but nothing that will take too many hours. So I think a relaxing day in in order.
Until next time

As some people asked: Here is my current update of my office. Some people ask why since Tuomas is a friend, do I have him as my pc desktop wallpaper.. Actually I'll talk about this since some have went back to the fangirl thing.
It's not on there because its Tuomas... if you look closely you can see he's holding the websites book we made. That image sits on my desktop as inspiration to work hard and continue to strive to build the very best Nightwish community. It's an emotional image of Tuomas, I like to be reminded that he appreciates all we do and just how well that fans pull together.
Ignore the bad quality

"CC" :)

Back to normality

Well it's been nearly a week since we made our first video blog about the night before meeting Tuomas. It's quite sad to think the event came and went so quickly.
Myself and Sarah were pretty 'sad' and started counting down the days to meeting since we got the date from Tuomas in December and we booked our hotel.
The days counted down fast and before I knew it I was working pretty much through the night organising things for London. We decided to have a website get together while we were down there also. So I called around several places and booked us an area in a rock bar: The Pipeline, this ended up being a really nice venue.
The biggest project we did was create a book for Tuomas. It was full of messages to him from fans.

We had a total of 76 fans take part (funny number when you think also Tuomas' year of birth) and it totalled close to 220 pages if I remember correctly.

Other things I arranged were some promotional pictures being made for Tuomas to sign for those attending the London gathering, as a small way of saying thank you for all the support I get for doing this.
                              
The day came and I headed to London. I live at the other end of England so a flight ended up the cheapest and quickest mode of transport to get there. I met up with my partner in crime Sarah and we headed off the our hotel together. We booked into the same one Tuomas was in as it made sense if schedule needed to be changed, of course it's an expensive choice but we both had the mentality of 'what the hell.'
The Sunday night consisted of me and Sarah making our first video blog after returning from some much needed food and drink, then afterwards we sat down and watched a few Nightwish DVDs, as the nerves were causing us not to be able to sleep.

Monday morning consisted again of another video blog and then we headed down to the bar to set up for Tuomas joining us an hour or so later. At this point we went through the wine list to chose Tuomas' "winnings". Now as most people know I had a bet with him on our 2 hockey teams playing each other.. I lost. The prize was the loser buys the wine for the meeting.
It turned 3pm and I caught the sight of a purple hat out the corner of my eye, who else could it of been. I wasn't as nervous as I expected when approaching him, after all we had been talking for over 3 months by this point. To break the ice I made a joke about expecting him to wear a hockey jersey to wind me up, he gave a laugh then simply gave a hug.. that was it ice broken, nerves instantly gone.
After introducing him to Sarah we sat, he laughed at the fact I remembered about his winnings. He went through some gifts he brought with him. I feel so privileged that he gave me what he did, his first ever lyrics- the song Nightwish. We also got loads of stuff for a competition which we will hold in the next few month, one of his hats he used in promo photos and live, the original artwork from Dark Passion Play, and loads of signed singles and some vinyl.
It was then I presented him with my personal gift and then of course the website book. He absolutely loved it. He was so emotional and flattered by it, it was getting myself and Sarah emotional too just watching him.

He said he will read every page and it was the best gift he's received, and really want's to write something special to the members of the site which he will do when he's finished reading it all.
Here is the video we took of him getting the book:

Following that we just chatted for a while. Told him off for the translation error of his recent illness which meant he told me he was suffering for something much more serious than the tonsillitis he was suffering from, of course still not a nice and you can tell especially on the videos that he was still not 100%.
We then preceded to ask him the questions that members of The Escapist had submitted. I had them wrote in a notepad which he took off me and read himself. It turned out to be a good little interview even if short. I apologise to people. We only took 20 questions with us as the interview was always going to be an extra to what we already had planned, it was not until we were into it and finished that we realised we didnt have enough. Typically when Tuomas put us on the spot to ask more, my mind went blank. Tuomas enjoyed our questions so much, we have sent him more via email that he was keen on answering.
To view the interview and read the transcript of it have a look here.

We then had Jukka, Ewo, Pip Williams and John join us. It was a good laugh and just very natural to sit and have a laugh. We quickly finished with a few photos. We initially were going to get quite a few and use them in website design etc but since Tuomas was still not feeling well, we only got a couple.

And that was it, after about 3.5 hours with Tuomas they left to head to the studio. Myself and Sarah retired to our room to make the last of our video blogs before heading out for food.

The next day we headed out to Camden, it was then I got a crazy idea of getting a tattoo to mark the occasion... so I did (you can see it on my right for arm on the top image of the blog).

We then headed to the Pipeline to the member meeting. We had a fantastic time! 20 people turned up which was amazing, the only thing is I forgot to take a group shot which annoyed me. We had some fun chats, and our Evil_Wench aka Sari decided it would be fun if she brought her whips.. I think she studied that picture of Tuomas whipping Jukka too much. I'll tell you she bloody hurts with it! We will be doing this again later in the year. It was so much fun, and everyone seemed to love the signed promo photo Tuomas did for everyone:

For more pictures of the meet look here
While there I got a phone call from Ewo, he was going to head over to party with everyone but in the end couldn't so a group of us went over to where he was. The guys had to leave to get the last train leaving myself and Cyntia to go with Ewo and crew to the Crobar till closing of 3am. We had a fab night, even though I ended up falling asleep on Cyntia's shoulder for a bit.

So that's it. Day after this I returned home to loads of work on the website and I'm still playing catch up.

Thank you for reading

Until next time!

Carol