Once again, during 1997, Vortex Events embarked on an ambitious series of events all over the UK and a further location visit.

REGENERATION - Saturday 22nd February 1997

Birmingham

Guests Mary Tamm, John Leeson and Mat Irvine

The first Vortex Event of the New Year continued with previous tradition and took place in Birmingham.

Mary Tamm and John Leeson at Regeneration (1997)

As with most previous events, the intention had been to feature a Doctor, however, for a variety of reasons this was not possible in Birmingham. A Time Lady was on hand in the form of Mary Tamm who was also joined by original K9 voice provider, John Leeson.

The afternoon session featured an appearance by veteran Visual Effects Designer Mat Irvine, who as well as talking about his work on Doctor Who and Blake's 7, was also able to tell of his then recent Directing work on Future Fantastic with Gillian Anderson.

SKARASEN, 24th & 25th May 1997

Glasgow

Guests: Nicholas Courtney, Deborah Watling, Louise Jameson and Barry Letts

GENESIS, Saturday 28th June 1997

Bournemouth

Guests: Colin Baker, Elisabeth Sladen and Peter Miles

Colin Baker at Genesis in Bournemouth (1997)	From Glasgow the Vortex team headed south for their next one day convention which was held  in Bournemouth. This was to be the most popular of the one day, hotel based, Vortex Events that have taken place to date with over 120 people attending. The hard work the team had put in over the previous twelve months had paid off and this was being shown in the increasing numbers attending each subsequent event. This was good news as the final event of the year was again due to take place on location and therefore would be more costly to organise.	Elisabeth Sladen at Genesis in Bournemouth (1997)
However as with "The Daemones Revisited" in  Aldbourne, outside events were again to play there part, this time in a much more dramatic way

THE RETURN OF FENRIC - Saturday 6th September 1997

Hawkhurst, Kent

Alfred Lynch and Sylvester McCoy return to St Laurence's Church, Hawkhurst,

where the Curse of Fenric was filmed in 1989.

The idea for The Return of Fenric came about before The Daemons Re-Visited had even taken place.

The comparisons are obvious in that both feature a church and the respective villages had suitable playing fields nearby which could accommodate the event. The local pub near the Church which the BBC had used as a base during filming also proved an excellent HQ for Vortex although as with Aldbourne the main proceedings would be held in a Marquee.

The event was again promoted as a family fun and Nostalgia Day for the villagers and two groups of wartime re-enactment groups were on hand to add some authenticity to the programme.

Ticket sales were also healthy and even when both Nicholas Parsons, Sophie Aldred and Visual Effects Assistant Mike Tucker had to cancel due to other commitments things still seemed okay. Mike Tucker recommended the overall Visual Effects Designer on the story, Graham Brown, and Joann Kenny who guest starred, was also tracked down. What could possibly go wrong apart from the weather?

On the 31st August, Diana Princess of Wales was killed in a car crash and within 24 hours it was announced that her funeral would take place on the same day that Fenric was due to return. It soon became clear that much of the UK from football matches to supermarkets would be closing as a mark of respect. The view of the Vortex team was to carry on. Over twenty-one months of work had gone into planning the event and cancelling would not only lose this but a large amount of money as well, which would have to be borne by the organisers as individuals. Frantic calls to the local council and the church who had agreed to open the church tower followed and surprisingly neither objected to a slightly lower key event being staged, provided a two minute silence was held. A wedding planned for the church that morning was also due to take place so in many respects life carried on as normal.

One of the notices advising of the two minute silence prior to the start of the event.

Once again the Vortex luck with the weather held and the morning dawned bright and Sunny. Only around 12 of the 150 pre-registrations failed to show although more understandably there were few on the door attendees.

Despite this, the event went very well and by the afternoon when things were beginning to return to normal across the country many of the villagers came along to have a look and many fans also had the opportunity to visit the church tower used in the show. More surprisingly considering the other news story of the day, the press showed a great deal of interest in the event and two of the local papers gave accurate reports of the event in the days that followed.

The Guests pose for the press at "The Return of Fenric"(1997)

L-R Joann Kenny, Alfred Lynch, John Nathan-Turner, Sylvester McCoy, Graham Brown

By the end of 1997, Vortex Events had run over fifteen one and two day conventions during the previous two year period. The sheer amount of work involved, all of which was undertaken by the various team members in addition to full time jobs, had taken it's toll, not least financially. The Fenric brochure bore the legend "Vortex Events Will Return" on it's final page and whilst the intention was to organise future events, nobody on the team, at that point, knew when it would be.

During this period, the various crewmembers took time out to move house, get married and advance careers, although the break from event organising, albeit not as Vortex Events was to be short-lived. 

Many members of the Vortex Team has attended the annual Cult TV Festivals which started in 1994 and subsequently were invited to help crew the 1997 event. This led to involvement from the Vortex Team with Cult TV  through until 2004, although during this period, Vortex Events would see it's own  Resurrection .

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