Game of Thrones season 7: HBO's release date announcement goes extremely awry

Two failed live streams, a pair of flamethrowers and over 60 minutes

HBO eyed an opportunity for its big Game of Thrones season seven release date announcement last night (9 March), but frustratingly for hundreds of thousands, that opportunity didn't quite go to plan.

Technical difficulties struck when a Facebook Live video showing fire melting a block of ice (see what they did?) - which contained the release date - took far longer than everybody involved anticipated.

It ultimately took two two failed live streams, a pair of flamethrowers and over an hour to announce the date and a brief trailer.

Actor Liam Cunningham, who plays Ser Davos Seaworth, was in attendance at the event which probably went on for longer than even he was expecting.

As you'd expect, Twitter and Facebook was awash with posts concerned with how awry the announcement went, with one user jokingly attributing the blame to author George RR Martin for 'killing off' the live streams.

It turns out Game of Thrones season seven will begin in the UK and US this July.

The 'ice and fire' theme is a reference to the name of George RR Martin's book series A Song of Ice and Fire and teases “the great war to come” between two of the show's central characters.

Earlier this week, actor Jim Broadbent revealed that the 'significant' character he's playing in the penultimate season is exactly who fans predicted when he was added to the cast last August.