Poster
The Poster (pdf)
Full resolution image (The pdf is pretty much just a single image. Nothing hiding there this year!)
MAIN CHARACTER
The guy on the poster is Charles Messier, wearing the Cross of the Legion of Honour.
FLYING CAR
Messier is riding a Messerschmitt bubble car. The bubble car came in a version with 'comet tail' trim, and there was a Messerschmitt ME163 'Komet' rocket-powered airplane in WW2. The car was modified to reference the Me-109 airplane, and the list of Messier Objects includes the M109.
COMET AND STARS
RAINBOW FOOTBALL BOOTS
There is a range of Messi football boots, named after the famous footballer Lionel Andrés "Leo" Messi Cuccittini. These come in rainbow colours as below:
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COLOURED SCALE STRIPS
Each of the colours can be mapped to the notes of a major scale, with red being the lowest and violet the highest (except the red in the middle of the second strip is an octave up). The heights of the strips represent the note lengths. Translated in this way the four strips can be read from top to bottom and left to right to yield the following sixteen bars Media:DeckTheHalls.wav. These are recognisably the end of a verse of "Deck The Halls".
The letters "V.2 LL 3-4" are therefore "Verse 2, lines 3 and 4", which (at least for the version on Wikipedia, and with some ambiguity about what a "line" is) would be:
Follow me in merry measure,
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!
While I sing of beauty's treasure,
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
Applying the given substitutions yields:
Follow me in messy pleasure,
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!
While I sing of buried treasure,
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
(The "+" symbol means that the note it marks (the first "la") is sharp.)
ANGELS AND OTHER CHURCH/STAINED GLASS IMAGERY
There are three angels in the rounded windows left and right (same image, flipped horizontally). The central angel looks like it is carrying a stone block, or possibly a musical instrument - like these angels here. It looks very much like a portative organ/organetto, see here or here. 'Angel' derives from Late Latin 'angelus' (borrowed from Greek aggelos/ángelos), see Wikipedia; it means MESSenger.
The lower right stained glass window, partly obscured by the comet tail, has a series of panels alternating repeats of the letter T and of a face. An enhanced image of this window.
CHURCH BUILDING
May be based on a real church/place of worship?
COINS SPILLING DOWN
May just denote treasure, since it is depicted as spilling from a pot at the end of the rainbow.
TITLE WORDING AND COLOURING
GET READY FOR HOURS OF MADDENING FUN, AS YOU SOLVE PUZZLES,
DECIPHER INSTRUCTIONS AND FIND HIDDEN TREASURE
STARTS ON 15 DECEMBER SEE PABLOSATH.COM
May not be significant.
