By Mark Shaffer
The Ironton Tribune

Once again, wizards and muggles took over the streets of Ironton for the sixth annual Wizardfest.
Diana Erwin, of South Point, made a return trip to Wizardfest, her first one since 2019, and it was a spur of the moment thing.
“I actually won tickets from the Briggs Library drawing,” she said. “I hadn’t planned on coming this year and at the last minute I got a phone call and they said ‘You won!’”
She said that there have been a lot of changes since the first one.
“It has grown so much. Before it was just a little chunk of downtown. Now it spreads across four streets. And it was just in the Ro-Na, now there are so many shops and exhibits everywhere. It is fantastic to see this many people still love Harry Potter.”
One of the newest events was Muggitch, a non-magical version of Quidditch that was built and run by Matthew Conley.
It was very popular with kids and adults trying to get an underinflated red rubber ball into one of three rings while the other team tried to block them.
Conley said he and his crew are big fans of Harry Potter and had frequently attended Wizardfest. Last year, after the Wizarding Ball, Conley approached the organizers about creating a version of the game that those without a magical broom could play.
“Quidditch is a huge part of the Harry Potter world, so we just created Muggitch,” Conley said. “Everybody has had a blast with it, adults, kids. So it has been pretty good.”
And the weather was cooperative on Saturday coming in overcast but a pleasant 65 degrees. Sunday was still warm but afternoon showers slowed things down a bit.
Overall, organizer Brad Bear said it was great fun for all those who came.
“I think it is going really well. The weather has been cooperating and everyone seems to be having a really good time,” he said. “Couldn’t be happier, really.”
He said that Muggitch was a hit, “the visitors from the UK,” Harry Potter movie actors, James Payton, who played Neville Longbottom’s father, Frank, in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Walles Hamonde, who portrays an auror in Fantastic Beasts and was most recently in “Beatlejuice, Beatlejuice” as a TV producer, Adrian Rawlins, who played Harry’s father, James Potter, and Rohan Gotobed, who played the younger version of Sirius Black, all seemed to have a good time interacting with fans who came as far away as Michigan, Indiana and Pennsylvania.
Bear said his favorite part of the event was being surrounded by people that are happy.
“No one is saying anything negative, everyone seems to be upbeat and really enjoying the experience,” he said. “I am enjoying the peace, because people are having fun.”