Fans of The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter franchises, as well as those of Hans Zimmer and the films he had scored, got into a frenzy when KBeam Events and Multimedia unwrapped a post-Christmas treat in the form of a trio of concerts featuring music from these beloved films happening in July 2025 at the Metropolitan Theater in Manila.
The announcement revealed that these three concerts will happen on a span of just two days with The Magical Music of Harry Potter happening on July 7, 2025 at 5:30 PM, The Music of the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit happening on July 8, 2025 at 5:30 PM, while The Music of Hans Zimmer and Others will have two performances happening on July 7 & 8, 2025 at 9:00 PM.
One cannot blame the excitement brought by this announcement especially when teased that a cast member from the film franchises (a Weasley for Harry Potter, a Pirate from the Pirates of the Caribbean for Hans Zimmer, unspecified though for Lord of the Rings) will make a special guest appearance in each of the concerts. It’s even probable that Potterheads have not yet recovered from Harry Potter actors James and Oliver Phelps (Fred and George Weasley) visiting the country for the launch of HBO Max last November, so news of a Weasley (possibly a different one) coming to the Philippines got considerable online buzz.
But upon closer inspection, the promotional images especially the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter concerts are not on brand with hardly any images at all taken from the films. It becomes more telling when comparing these to the posters of the previous Harry Potter concerts held at the Theatre at Solaire back in 2019 and 2023. This led to some wondering if these recently announced concerts are licensed productions or not.
After some digging, it is found out that these three concerts are actually produced by Star Entertainment GmbH based in Germany. What’s alarming is that Howard Shore himself, the Academy and Grammy Award winning composer of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, has issued a statement back in April 2023 warning people that the Star Entertainment produced concert is not official and that there is a current lawsuit against them. This warning stemmed from a disastrous performance of such a concert at the Portsmouth Guildhall in Portsmouth, UK. Additionally, negative reviews of these concerts can be easily found online.
Local fans of these franchises may still be blinded by all the initial excitement these concerts have generated and may fail to scrutinize the true nature of these productions. May this serve as a warning considering that their wallets still full of Christmas money and ticket selling is just a few days from now. It will be a pity if they shell their money to concerts that will ultimately disappoint.
