Warner Bros. Studio Tour London

The making of Harry Potter Warner Bros. Studio Tour is a magical experience for all ages to enjoy. My top tip before visiting is look at the various events that are being held throughout the year including Dark arts and Christmas at Hogwarts theming. This will help you to decide what time of year you would enjoy best and get the most out of your experience, find out the details here.

The most recent visit I had at the studio was in the Christmas period so I was able to experience Hogwarts in the Snow which was stunning. The Great Hall was festively decorated with Yule Ball features making an appearance, and snow covering various other sets creating a very lovely atmosphere.

The Dark Arts event is similar to this in creating a Halloween themed experience with notes of the Death Eaters and of course Voldemort himself included throughout the tour. At this event various Death Eaters will be walking around wearing authentic costumes with learning wand combat on offer from an interactive display with Paul Harris.

Prepare to explore all aspects of the castle including the potions classroom located in the dungeon, the headmasters office, Hagrid’s hut, the Forbidden Forest, Professor Sprout’s Greenhouse. Enjoy an insight into the house dormitories and common roomsand of course the great hall.

The Forbidden Forest was very entertaining with multiple pathways looping around the set and spider animatronics accompanied by fog, both of which had an interactive element of button pushing by the visitors to set off certain special effects. Professor Sprout’s Greenhouse was also a great experience with an interactive element of pulling the famous screaming Mandrakes out of their plant pots.

Experience exterior locations to the castle such as Gringotts Wizarding Bank, the Ministry of Magic, the Weasley's Burrow, Diagon alley and platform 9 and ¾ with beautiful sets and authentic props and costumes included throughout the whole tour.

Special effects and creature effects are heavily involved in this tour creating a great behind the scene experience of how the movies were made. From the Chamber of Secrets Door which is a fully functional door created by the special effects team, the Invisibility Cloak, the Whomping Willow with mechanically operated branches created and a full sized tree trunk built for the prisoner of Azkaban.

At the studio tour there is a green screen experience to make it look like you are flying a broomstick over the city of London.

Finally, for the budding artists this may be the most interesting part of the tour. The detailed architecture and its drawings, paintings and various artwork of the films, the thousands of props created for the films such as textbooks, Harry’s invitation letter to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, sweet packaging and much more.

Intricate white card models of the sets created are stunning to look at. These models had a vital role to plan how to shoot the movies for example what the best angles would be to film at. And of course, the main attraction - the Hogwarts Castle model. This model was used in the shooting of the films with digital effects added post production including filming of the courtyards and turrets of the castle.

The costume design areas are interesting to look at, especially all the masks and prosthetics that were made for the Goblins. It was great to see some of the famous costumes from scenes such as the Yule Ball, Quidditch and the Beuxbatton uniform. The animatronics that were created for various entities such as the Werewolf after Professor Lupin’s terrifying transformation in the Prisoner of Azkaban, the mechanics of the Mandrake, Buckbeak, Aragog and many more.

This is only the smallest insight to the studio tour, there is so much more to experience and explore! So much that the tour can take around 3 hours, any Harry Potter fan must visit this at least once.