About Us

Three Men High

The three future ex-students Alex, Dirk, and Jens start an adventure much like Bilbo once did! Yes, it's overstated, but the first slide (who the hell still calls it a slide today?) should be exciting. Anyway, Dirk had tinkered around with software for online shops for fun, so they decide to do that. But what should they sell? Socks? Shower curtains? Aprons?* No! Because the three are total Lord of the Rings nerds, and there isn't any cool merchandise for it in Germany, they decide on that. Isn't a movie being made about it as well?

*By the way, you can find all that stuff at Elbenwald...

We embark on an adventure!

The Elbenwald website launches. With its pure Lord of the Rings online shop, the three reach an astonishing turnover of a whopping 800 marks by the end of December! Now that's a groundbreaking success...

Movie History #1

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring celebrates its world premiere and becomes the second most successful film of the year – and a catalyst for Elbenwald. Suddenly, the shop is swamped, at the end of the month, there's suddenly a turnover 625 times higher than the previous year! And because the boxes in the student dormitory soon pile up to the ceiling, and the three slowly fear they won't be able to use the bathroom anymore, they rent a small apartment.

We solemnly swear that we are up to no good

So, The Fellowship was the second most successful film of the year 2001. However, the most successful film (that's not a word) was Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Alex and Co. also notice this, so they decide not to limit themselves to Middle-earth any longer. The inclusion of Harry Potter among the new themes was possibly the most important business decision of their career.

Movie History #2

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King makes film history and is awarded eleven Oscars. Peter Jackson's epic conclusion won in all nominated categories. To this day, the film holds the record for the most Academy Awards (tied with Titanic and Ben-Hur), and it was the first fantasy film to win the Best Picture award.

The Great Distraction

World of Warcraft launches in Europe. Alex, Jens, and Dirk are thrilled! However, it would take Dirk nearly a year to reach the max level. Yes, back then, things took much longer. Not like the softened addons we know today. You had to invest real time for leveling up, mounts, and so on!

Elbenwald IRL (OR: The Elbenwald Spectacle)

The first of five Elbenwald Spectacles kicks off! In its inaugural year, 210 fantasy enthusiasts gathered for a wild weekend at Burg Bilstein. It included loads of cosplays and even a real-life Quidditch variant developed by Alex, which wasn't too dissimilar from the later "real" sport.

German Fantastic Prize

The German Fantastic Prize is awarded at the Buchmesse-Con. For some reason, Elbenwald is awarded as the best website! The other nominees, Fantasyguide.de, Gabriel-Burns.de, Maddrax.de, and even Stephen-King.de, are left speechless. (We assume.)

What’s that mysterious ticking noise?

The Mysterious Ticking Noise video is released on YouTube. We've watched it approximately twelve thousand times since then. Just watched it again now. And you're watching it now too, aren't you?

There was still something...

The three of them realize they are still enrolled at the university. And they change that.

The unofficial Christmas note

Do you still remember the huge Otto catalog that, due to its weight, could have deserved a place as a murder weapon in a Clue game? Well, in November 2007, Elbenwald released its first major comprehensive catalog (smaller "magalogs" existed earlier). It wasn't quite as heavy, but for about 15 years, it became the unofficial birthday and Christmas wish list for generations of enthusiastic nerds.

Pleasant Ascension Day

Elbenwald publishes its first Facebook post. In hindsight, it turned out to be not worth showing off, especially since the author of these lines went to a completely inappropriate amount of effort to track down the post. Only to then realize that it simply wished all the readers (there weren't many) a pleasant holiday (Ascension Day). Five likes and one comment ("Thanks, likewise") say it all about this disappointing piece of history.

The first Elbenwald Store

Elbenwald opens its first store in Berlin's Alexa. Finally, the capital's nerds could get a hands-on experience with the bestsellers from the online shop. The idea of having a physical store was initially a shot in the dark. No one would have thought that we'd eventually talk about more than 30 stores at home and abroad.

The Game of Thrones begins

An unassuming fantasy series, which would play a significant role at Elbenwald later the same year, airs for the first time on HBO: Game of Thrones. Nice, although we blame the series for the need to put a spoiler warning before any tiny piece of information today. (In the end, the Iron Throne is destroyed. Sorry. Not sorry.)

Film history #3

Fans around the world feel a disturbance in the Force. Disney buys Lucasfilm along with the rights to Star Wars for 4 billion dollars. We still feel the effects of this today.

A Mega Campaign…

Elbenwald gives away all the Harry Potter wands on YouTube. Creators and participants are thrilled.

... goes wrong

Elbenwald embarrasses itself to the bone by publicly announcing the winner of the wands on YouTube and asking them to get in touch. Only to have, in what we would now call "predictably," a lot of people claiming to be the winner. Silly. It took more than a week to determine the correct winner...

Long live His Majesty Joffrey

Elbenwald publishes its first Instagram post. With a few Funkos. Not that important. But hey, His Majesty Joffrey of Houses Baratheon and Lannister, the First of His Name, King of the Andals and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm takes the spotlight.

Zukunftspreis Brandenburg

Elbenwald is awarded the Zukunftspreis Brandenburg (Future Prize Brandenburg). As part of the prize, they received, among other things, an image film. We checked it recently (November 2023) to find out that it has a whopping 424 views, three likes, and exactly one comment. Well. (The award is still great, especially since the plaque looks nice.)

Across Borders

Elbenwald opens its first store abroad. Well, in the "small" abroad. More precisely, in Austria. Even more precisely, in Vienna's Donauzentrum. Elbenwald openings are always awesome (which is probably mainly due to the 40% opening discount for costumed attendees). But what went down in Vienna was beyond our wildest dreams.

Exemplary Winners

Celebrating our 100,000th fan on Facebook was such a joy that we decided to raffle a €500 voucher. However, the winner didn't want it and preferred to donate everything to the patients at the Children's Ward of Charité Hospital. So, together with the winner, we went there and distributed child-friendly merchandise worth €1,000. It was beautiful!

German Quidditch National Team

Elbenwald becomes the main sponsor of the German Quidditch National Team (now German Quadball Association). In the same year, the Quidditch World Cup takes place in Germany for the first time, and unexpectedly, the Australians defeat the heavily favored USA in a thrilling final.

It wasn't meant to be

Elbenwald starts developing an incredible Harry Potter board game that looks so beautifully designed, packed with tons of inside references (especially the "Oliver Wood" event card) and is incredibly fun. Unfortunately, the product will never hit the market.

Reading Without Permission

In celebration of the 20th anniversary of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Elbenwald hosts a massive live reading at the Cottbus Elbenwald Store and broadcasts it online without authorization. Legal departments of several companies are appalled.

The Elbenwald Festival

Elbenwald announces the first Elbenwald Festival, the quasi-successor to the Elbenwald Spectacle! Some highlights of the lineup: Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter), Jamie Campbell Bower (Stranger Things), Evanna Lynch (Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter), Coldmirror, Dr. Mark Benecke, Wolfgang Hohlbein, David Nathan, and so many more!

Chaos in Mannheim

Elbenwald causes chaotic conditions in Mannheim. For the opening of the newest store, so many fans show up that the police have to intervene and even reroute the tram. Amazing!

Be a Good Person

The page The Best Social Media shows good taste and praises our terms and conditions.

Movie History #4

Avengers: Endgame celebrates its world premiere in Los Angeles. Still one of the best cinematic experiences we've ever had.

It's like in the great stories

2020 is a year when our Muggle world really could have used some magic. But instead of being able to bring cheer with a flick of a wand, our staff had to exchange their wands and lightsabers for masks and disinfectants to face the pandemic.

"It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end, because how could the story be good with so much bad happening? How could the world ever go back to the way it was after all the terrible things? But in the end, it's just a passing shadow. Even darkness must pass."

Thank you, Sam, for those uplifting words. But most importantly, we thank all our staff and the fans out there! Through the strong community and the shared love for fantastic worlds, we made it through this dark time.

The Rings of Power

The presumably most expensive TV series production of all time begins – The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Whether it's fantastic or not can't be conclusively judged yet, but one thing is for sure, it looks stunning.

Elbenwald Goes International

Elbenwald opens its first store in the Netherlands, specifically in Amsterdam! Three months later, the entire Elbenwald website becomes multilingual. In addition to German, it now supports English, French, and Dutch.