--- draft: false title: My Experience Hosting a Lord of the Rings Marathon date: "2019-02-04T23:09:46Z" slug: my-experience-hosting-a-lord-of-the-rings-marathon tags: - Lord of the Rings --- A couple of weekends ago I hosted a few friends for a Lord of the Rings marathon and we set off on an epic adventure in Middle Earth together. Here's my take on what went well, what I'd change, and which movie I never intend to watch the extended edition of again. My first recommendation from the weekend is to have a running order that tracks your breaks, meals, and viewing times throughout the day. My wife and I found this [excellent Quora post](https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-combined-length-of-the-Lord-of-the-Rings-Extended-Editions) that lists the runtime for each movie (extended editions of course) which we used to form the basis for our crib sheet. We decided that it was best to start late and run late (10am-10:30pm) as opposed to requesting our guests arrive at 7am! Whilst we leaned heavily on the running order to ensure we'd finish in good time we didn't stick to it strictly. People are human and listening to your crowd's needs is important!