This weekend I visited Magiske Dage (Magical days) in Odense. It’s a yearly city festival in the Danish town of Odense (hometown of famous fairytale author H.C. Andersen). Since 2002, they’ve been hosting this event, which originally was a Harry Potter-festival (until 2018 when they had to change the name, because of copyright issues). It’s mostly aimed at kids, but adult fantasy fans are of course also welcome.

I went with my husband and met up with a couple of our friends who live nearby. I haven’t spend much time in Odense before and didn’t know the city that well, so it was a bit confusing where to go, but we found a parking spot nearby and walked around. The events’ webpage did have a program, but it was divided by area rather than having an overall schedule, and if you’re not familiar with the event or the city, it’s quite confusing, so we ended up just walking around to look at the all-day events. There weren’t that many signs around town to show what was where, and it took us a while to find the artist alley, which was kind of hidden on the first floor of a building in a rather cramped space. I think it’s a real pity that they didn’t do more with this part and make it a bit bigger, maybe even incorporate some of the city’s shops. It would totally make sense for the local nerd shop and book stores to include some Harry Potter/fantasy booths. But they didn’t. The shops of course did have some of these things going on, but you’d have to know to go to them. 

The small events they had around the city were cute and fun for kids. They cost a little, but it was cheap and I think mostly to cover material expenses. You could make wands, magical potions, charms, dragon eggs and crystals. If I’d been a child, I would have absolutely LOVED it. They even had their own currency you could buy, so kids could get to pay themselves (but also offered MobilePay). The only bad thing I can say about these events is that for some of them, you’d walk in an no one would greet you or explain what was happening. But perhaps that’s because we didn’t bring any children.

There was an event where you could pay to get to hold an owl and take a photo. I kind of wanted to, but the queue was very long and that area was quite crowded. It’s a pity they didn’t have some kind of ticket system with a time so you wouldn’t need to stand around for hours.

One local board game cafe had made butterbeer for the occasion and had a fantasy theme going, and we went there for a butterbeer. Sadly by the time we were able to get a table, we were kind of beat and I didn’t have energy to learn a new game, so we just had our drinks and left again.

All in all, I had a great day, but mostly because of good company. I’m not sure if I’d attend again without kids, but perhaps – if for no other reason than an excuse to wear my lion hat and robes.