Fan Tourism

Related terms:	fan pilgrimage
See also:
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Fan tourism is the practice of traveling to locations of fannish significance: often film sets, landmarks or places featured prominently in a canon work, the birthplaces or cemetery of a creator or artist, and so on. Fans may travel to real places featured by name in fictional works (e.g., Twilight fans visiting Forks, WA), or travel to the active film sets of their favorite movie or TV show (e.g., Setlock). Some fans create albums comparing images from television and film and photos they have taken while visiting places used as film locations. Fan tourism is a wide umbrella, encompassing a range of other fannish activities and practices; some people may include things like traveling to museums, cons, or sporting events in their personal definitions of fan tourism.

In addition to more DIY and fan-driven practices of fan tourism, there is also a booming industry of organized fan tourism, such as Lord of the Rings tours in New Zealand, or Game of Thrones tours in Croatia and Northern Ireland.

Fan Perspectives on Fan Tourism

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

Fans experiences of Game of Thrones tourism in Dubrovnik, Croatia

Absolutely gorgeous. If you do the city wall walk... I got a picture of it with the bay they used to film Myrcella being shipped off to Dorne. Favourite picture I've ever taken.

Could not recommend it enough. It's a beautiful city, and not just the Old City. There are about 6 shops that sell Game of Thrones merchandise too, including one with the Iron Throne! Also on my tour I got the chance to hold Longclaw, Oathkeeper, Needle, a Lannister Shield and the Shame Bell!

Fan experiences of visiting Tulsa, Oklahoma, hometown of Hanson for Hanson Day:

If you're a big Hanson fan, chances are you're going to wind up in Tulsa, Oklahoma at least once in your life. For many of us, "Hanson Day" has become this strange annual fan pilgrimage, an event where you can reunite with friends who are usually separated by states and countries and entire oceans. Tulsa has since grown to become more than the home of our favorite band; it's a place for our eccentric family reunion (and it comes complete with that weird cousin you always avoid. You know it's true).

The girls and I usually pick a few of the most important activities to participate in (none of us have the desire to bowl!), and we spend the rest of our time enjoying Tulsa. In 2012 we rode bikes up and down the River Parks trails along the Arkansas River – an activity we revisited this year. Stops at the boutiques in Brookside and the Blue Dome District are always a must, as well as meals at The Brook and Joe Momma’s. This year’s event happened to be the same weekend as Mayfest and the Blue Dome Arts Festival, so we had a great time just wandering the streets of downtown, taking in local art and music. Its a fun mini-vacation.

Tulsa is such a beautiful city. I’m currently residing in Idaho where, while beautiful in it’s vast landscapes of trees and wilderness, is definitely not the place I prefer to be. One of the things i’m looking forward to most about being back in Tulsa is just the beauty of the city and it’s people. The architecture and the feel of this city is amazing. Of all the places i’ve visited, i’ve not been to a single city where, while walking down the street, people I didn’t know smiled at me, asked me how my day was and held doors open for me; a man even went out of his way to help me find the donut shop! You get that big city look with a small town, friendly feel.

Fan websites provide information on filming locations for those who wish to visit either in person or virtually. For example, Merlin Locations has a thorough look at filming locations for the BBC series Merlin. The show was based in Cardiff, and made much use of the picturesque South Wales area, as well as other locations in Wales and England. The castle of Camelot was in reality the Chateau de Pierrefonds, an hour north of Paris, France, which has been a particularly popular place for fans to visit. Another popular location is the fantastical Puzzlewood, in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire. Puzzlewood has been credited with helping inspire J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, and has also been used in filming Doctor Who (New Who) episodes and the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy.

We started out on our own self-guided tour of the Chateau de Pierrefonds and climbed the stone spiral staircase up to the level that overlooks the beautiful stained-glass balcony. The ‘Morgana and Morgause balcony’ as my son calls it, can you guess which one? We made our way down the ‘running’ corridor… again, guess! And through to the foot of the pale spiral staircase that is famous for its ‘you are a loyal friend, Merlin’ scene. After much discussion and seeing who could remember the most lines from the scene (not me) we moved into the great hall. After trying to decide which window seat Colin had sat on to read his script, Ellen, Alex and I spent a good half an hour rooted to the spot talking about him and The Tempest. At 1pm our stomachs got the better of us and we decided to go into town to get some lunch.

Academic Perspectives on Fan Tourism

"...media fan tourism is about passing through different tourist spaces and finding meaning in the act of being present, taking photos, and performing as a fan within those spaces. As this happens multiple identities are revealed, fan identities are transformed over time, and memories of geographic landmarks become important signifiers of fandom. As I have argued elsewhere, fan spaces are imagined, real and unreal, constructed and natural, subverted and official, consumed and constructed, creative and hierarchical (Geraghty, 2014). They can be known through traditional tourism, such as visiting a city like Vancouver, but made more personal for fans aware of what's filmed there and what they can also do in particular locations. Spaces can also become fan spaces because they are designated as such, like Riverside Iowa, or they can be constructed specifically to attract a fan audience, as in the Harry Potter Studio tour. What fans do in these media tourism sites contributes to their fan identity; it can reaffirm their fandom and make them fans of new media texts after exploring the site in more detail.

- "Passing Through: Popular media tourism, pilgrimage, and narratives of being a fan" by Lincoln Geraghty in The Routledge Handbook of Popular Culture and Tourism (ed. Christine Lundberg and Vassilios Ziakas)

Several practices are common to fan pilgrimage and constitute an integral part of the pilgrim's "performance." Inscribing one's name at a tourism site is as old as tourism itself. Byron etched his name into a pillar of the temple of Poseidon in Greece and Charles Dickens etched his name on a window at Shakespeare's birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon. Similarly, we see Beatles' fans at Abbey Roar writing their names on the wall outside Abbey Road Studios and Sherlock fans at St Barts Hospital writing their names in the dust on the windows and on the call box nearby. This practice serves multiple purposes. It allows the fan to leave a bit of herself in the fictional world; leaving those inscriptions on the call box at St Barts requires a performance of the belief in the fictional world of Sherlock (as opposed to an actual belief in that world). It also allows fans to connect to the real-world objects of fandom via the performance itself. The object of fandom, most often absent or dead, is not there to see the performance and therefore its importance lies in the action itself rather than in who observes that action. (Though recording that action and sharing it with others later can increase the fan's social capital, as will be discussed later.)

- "Make Space for Us! Fandom in the Real World" by Lynn Zubernis and Katherine Larsen in A Companion to Media Fandom and Fan Studies (ed. Paul Booth)

Fans often engage in practices of research and collecting information in relation to their tourism, seeking to archive information, photographs and maps of important places and often trying to track down more obscure locations. Thus, much as fans often seek knowledge of other kinds about fan objects (for example, learning as much as possible about actors or writers from a favorite TV series), they can also engage in these kinds of practice when looking for film or TV locations.

- "Fan Tourism and Pilgrimage" by Rebecca Williams in The Routledge Companion to Media Fandom (ed. Melissa A. Click and Suzanne Scott)