UT Events are pleased to announce that our second guest for Vortex II is Rakie Ayola

Rakie starred in the Doctor Who episode ” Midnight” where she played a character only known as The Hostess along side David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor. In this companion-lite episode.  Sadly no one had thought to ask what her name was before she sacrificed herself to save all the passengers on the shuttle from the Midnight Entity.

Holby City fans will know Rakie from her role playing Kyla Tyson in over one hundred episodes of the hospital drama. She has also starred in the movie Sahara with Matthew McConauhey and most recently in the childrens musical series, My Almost Famous Family.

This will be Rakie’s first convention appearance and she is excited about meeting all the fans from Northern Ireland.

Tickets are now on sale.  Go get them while they’re still available!

Ok, it might be a bit early to assume we’re going to sell out like last year, but if we do then don’t say we didn’t warn you!  Our least favourite part of organising last year’s event was taking phone calls and answering emails from people looking for tickets after we’d sold out.  We even started to offer refunds (something we’ve never done before) so we could resell those tickets but only a handful of people took us up on the offer.  Our plans for this year’s event are much more ambitious.  Everything will be bigger and better with lots more to see and do and when our promotional efforts kick into high gear we expect ticket sales to increase significantly (remember the Dalek on the mountain last year?).  The only way to guarantee your ticket is to go get one now.

In other news, we’ll be running a Meet & Greet again this year.  Alas, Ianto is no longer with us but his Coffee Club lives on and tickets are currently on sale.  We’ve increased the number of tickets available to 50 and increased the time for the Meet & Greet to 1 hour so we can accommodate more people.  But, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, the coffee club tickets sold out last year too so if you want one then go get it now.

UT Events are proud to announce that our first guest for Vortex II is Kai Owen.

Kai Owen - IMDB

Kai has been a series regular on Torchwood since “Day One” (which, ironically, is the second episode of the first season) and has appeared in 22 episodes of the show.  During that time, his character “Rhys Williams” has gone from strength to strength and in the latest Children Of Earth mini-series he played a pivotal role working along side the remaining members of Torchwood.

Kai has been the highlight of many UK conventions but this will be his first convention appearance in Ireland and he is looking forward to meeting a whole new group of fans.  He will be taking part in all the usual activities during the day (guest Q&A, autographs, photographs, etc.) and may have a few surprises in store for attendees.

More event information and website updates will be coming this week and tickets will go on sale before the end of the month.

I’m finally up-to-date with tickets.  The latest batch were sent out this morning.  If you haven’t got yours yet then it’s for one of two reasons.  It’s either got stuck somewhere in the internet tubes (email us and we’ll send them again) or you didn’t provided the information we asked for when booking a ticket.  In the later case, you’ll have an email asking for the necessary information.  Just reply with the details and we’ll send you your tickets.

To those who are intending to buy tickets, please read the information on the booking page.  It makes life so much simpler for me when processing bookings.

I’ve added a few more questions and answers to the FAQ and posted a provisional schedule, the same one you’ll have received in your update with your tickets.  Like the page says, use this schedule as a guide to plan your day but small changes are likely so check the website the day before the event for the final schedule.

Finally, I hope you all enjoyed the Doctor Who Easter Special.  Unfortunately I won’t get a chance to see it ’till I get home next Sunday.  I’m trying to avoid spoilers but I gather from twitter and Facebook statuses that it’s gone down pretty well.

Hope you’re all having a good Easter.

Gareth David Lloyd

Gareth David Lloyd - IMDB

UT Events are pleased to announce that Gareth David Lloyd will be our headline guest at Vortex.  Gareth plays Ianto in the hugely successful spin-off series Torchwood.  From his first appearance in episode one where he was simply the “man on the door”, Gareth’s character has become an integral part of the Torchwood crew.  The loss of his girlfriend in episode four had some touching moments and his relationship with Captain Jack has added a very interesting dynamic to the team.

Gareth has appeared in every episode of Torchwood, including the upcoming 5-parter Children Of Earth (you’re welcome to do your best to get some information out of him about it!), so there will be no end to the stories he will have to tell during the Q&A or the discussions you can have with him in the coffee club (some tickets are still available, but we expect them to go quickly now that Ianto himself will be at Ianto’s Coffee Club!).

Gareth has also played rolls in The Bill, Rosemary & Thyme, Casualty and Absolute Power, as well as many well received stage productions including Twelfth Night, Macbeth, Henry V and Lyre.

We are delighted that Gareth has agreed to join us for the day and we hope you will give him a warm welcome to his first convention appearance in Ireland on May 3rd.

Like the post heading says, we have some bad news to announce.  There’s good news to go with it but let’s get the bad out of the way.

Unfortunately we have to announce that Anna Hope is unable to attend Vortex.  She’s working on a play and the schedule is preventing her from making the trip.  We know this will disappoint a lot of you who have already bought tickets, and we are as disappointed as you are, but we’re delighted that Anna is getting to do what she loves doing, acting.  We’ll get the dates and theatre location (it’s not in Northern Ireland) for you and maybe some of you will get the chance to see her on stage. If you do, let us know!

We’ve never failed to find a suitable replacement guest before and this time is no different.  We are pleased to announce that Chipo Chung has agreed to be a guest at Vortex.

Chipo Chung

Chipo Chung - IMDB

Chipo played Chantho in the third season episode Utopia.  Remember, that’s the same episode that Paul played the Chieftain in so they’re bound to have some great stories to tell about working on the episode with David and Freema, along with guest stars John Barrowman and John Simm.

You may not realise it but you’ve also seen Chipo in the fourth season episode Turn Left.  There she played the Fortune Teller who tried to change Donna’s past.  Perhaps Paul and Chipo can shed some light on the rumour that the Fortune Teller was part of the Trickster’s Brigade.

Chipo has also played roles in TV Shows Dalziel and Pascoe, Holby City and The Last Enemy, as well as the Gwyneth Paltrow movie Proof and the 2007 movie Sunshine where she was the voice of the Icarus.

It’s disappointing that Anna won’t be at Vortex but you will be getting a great replacement guest and Anna will be top of our list to be invited to our next Doctor Who event.  Stay tuned for the announcement of our headline guest soon.   Follow us on Twitter if you want to be the first to know.  Alternatively, you can subscribe for email updates to get it delivered straight to your inbox.  The announcement will also go out on all our social networks so friend us on MySpace or join our Facebook group (you’ll find all the links below).  Or simply just keep checking back here regularly.

Just a quick post to let you all know that the Vortex FAQ has been posted.  There’s not a lot there at the minute but as new questions come in we’ll answer them and add to the FAQ if necessary.  You’ll find that a lot of questions will be answered by the” Update” that is emailed to you with your eTickets.  I’ll get that on the site for downloading soon.

Please check the FAQ and the Update before sending us your questions.  It’s not that we mind answering them, it’s that we’ll probably just direct you to the answer in the FAQ and you can save yourself the time waiting on a response.

Anna Hope

Anna Hope - IMDB

We are delighted to announce Anna Hope as our second guest for Vortex.  After appearing in the webcast Tardisode “New Earth”, Anna played Novice Hame, one of the Sisters of Plenitude, in two Doctor Who episodes with David Tennant.  In the second season opener “New Earth”, she looked after the Face Of Boe on Ward 26 while covering up the Sister’s secret farm of cloned humans.  Anna was perfectly positioned to watch David take on his new roll as The Doctor and should have many interesting stories to tell about that.  In the season three episode “Gridlock”, she helped The Doctor and the Face Of Boe save the Under-City civilians from the Motorway and was with the Face during his final moments.

Anna also performed in two audio plays for Big Finish Productions.  “The Condemned” saw Anna play D.I. Patricia Menzies with Colin Baker as The Doctor.  She proved a difficult adversary for The Doctor when he had to prove his innocence after being accused of murder.  She reprised her roll for “The Raincloud Man” and worked with Colin again on another adventure in Manchester.

Just a quick update today.  Some more characters have been added to the Live Characters section.  We’ve got quite a collection now so don’t forget your camera on the day.  There’ll be a lot of photo opportunities.

Next the FAQ.  It’s small at the moment.  In fact, it’s not much more than a template.  But now that it’s there we’ll be adding more answers as the questions come in.

Our next guest announcement will be made later tonight.  Want a hint?  She has appeared in two episodes of Doctor Who with David Tennant (season 2 & 3), as well as two audio plays for Big Finish Productions (playing a different character).  Yes, that’s pretty vague but see how close you can get.  Have a guess in the comments below.

Tickets for Vortex will go on sale at 9am tomorrow morning.  You’ll be able to book on-line through our website or download a booking form to print and post to us with a cheque.  Unfortunately we can’t take bookings over the phone for this event but give us a call on 07709 176 544 if you’re having any trouble getting your tickets and we’ll sort it out for you.

Oh, one more thing.  We didn’t want to be posting yet another self-promoting blog about this but I thought I may as well drop it in at the end of this post.  The Newtownabbey Times ran an article on their website and in print about our Snow Dalek.  They gave us a nice write-up and hopefully piqued a bit of interest in the event but they forgot to include our website address!

Newtownabbey Times Article

Paul Marc Davis

Paul Marc Davis - IMDB

We are delighted to announce Paul Marc Davis as our first guest. Paul joined us for Genesis, our first Doctor Who event in 2007, and fans were blown away by his engaging personality. His episode of Doctor Who hadn’t even been broadcast so he was very restricted in what he could talk about during his Q&A session. However, he still kept the audience captivated with his stories from the set and other projects he had worked on.

Since then, his highly rated season 3 episode “Utopia” has been shown where he plays The Chieftain, he has played a small role in the season 2 finale of Torchwood and brought The Trickster to life in four episodes of The Sarah Jane Adventures. There is no other actor we know who has worked on all three productions in the Doctor Who universe and that alone would have been enough reason for him to be our first choice of guest. But we also know how generous he is with fans of the shows and always goes the extra mile to make the event that bit more special.