I can totally see it. I think most people are imagining this as a six hour long continuous debate between panelists, which sounds unrealistic to me. More likely it was a conversation that started over lunch between a few attendees, then paused for the afternoon sessions (or w/e I don’t know how Tolkien conferences are structured) and then picked back up during evening drinks. It could have gotten quite heated, and less scholarly, as the libations flowed, before OP mentioned the mead halls.
It’s also possible that the scholars in question did know about the The Hobbit references but quibbled over whether that was a canonical reference, since JRRT wrote The Hobbit as a standalone work before retconning it into the broader Eä extended universe.
I think maybe this didn’t happen
I can totally see it. I think most people are imagining this as a six hour long continuous debate between panelists, which sounds unrealistic to me. More likely it was a conversation that started over lunch between a few attendees, then paused for the afternoon sessions (or w/e I don’t know how Tolkien conferences are structured) and then picked back up during evening drinks. It could have gotten quite heated, and less scholarly, as the libations flowed, before OP mentioned the mead halls.
It’s also possible that the scholars in question did know about the The Hobbit references but quibbled over whether that was a canonical reference, since JRRT wrote The Hobbit as a standalone work before retconning it into the broader Eä extended universe.