[arg_discuss] What if ARGs had a real festival?

[Michael Monello]

I was thinking something like a Fringe or film festival. People submit a description of their ARGs/experiences to the festival and the festival selects the best of them to be presented at the festival. There would be a catalog/website of experiences and you could choose to either buy an individual ticket for a specific experience/ARG or you could buy a festival pass that allows you to do whatever you want. As for when the ARG or experience begins and ends, that would be up to the creators. For example, I might pitch an ARG that starts the minute you buy a ticket, sending you to websites, calling you up, and then culminating at a live experience at the festival. Or maybe the live experience at the festival is the start of something that continues for a few weeks after. Or maybe it's like the 10 minute ARG that Steve Peters presented at ARGFest, the ARG equivalent of a short film or one-act play!

This would fill a lot of holes in the ARG Community:


 1.  Provide a stage for indie creators to present work to the public in an environment that encourages people to participate in their games.
 2.  Foster an environment of experimentation and discovery within both the ARG creator and player communities.
 3.  Provide an opportunity for the public to explore ARGs in a friendly and approachable environment.
 4.  Great PR opportunities for ARGs in general, vs the kind of PR that is usually driven by big marketing games.
 5.  Opportunities for creative collaboration on many levels.

Alongside of this you would have panels, parties and other events, much like film festivals do. It's something that would appeal to a more general audience, and I could see how an event like this could be a catalyst for incredible opportunities to spring forth, as they do at film and Fringe festivals around the world.

-Mike


On 9/2/09 4:47 PM, "Brooke Thompson" <brooke at giantmice.com> wrote:

In my mind, it would look something like this...

A series of presentations and case studies - some post-mortems, some
introductions. Running along side this or, perhaps, adjacent to it,
would be a lot of activities. Some would be fairly stand-alone sorts
of things like the Hidden Park game or other Augmented Reality type
things. Others would be ongoing types of things - like local
geocaches. Still others might be live events for currently running
campaigns such as we've seen happen at comic-con (or using a different
TDK/WSS example, there could be a political rally for Harvey Dent). I
think it would be great to reach out to people working in the urban
gaming area, as well - maybe get a city-wide scavenger hunt or two
going on. There may be deeper character interactions, similar to what
John mentioned (or akin to the activities we've done in Eldritch where
players spend an extended amount of time with characters - who, funny
he should mention LARPs, we've often cast out of LARP troupes).

It would be a large mix of games and experiences. Some things would be
time specific and some might require sign-up. These things could be
registered for online and at some sort of ARG HQ which would also have
some breakout areas for impromptu presentations and whatnots. All of
this would be documented on some sort of big board and/or website so
people have an idea of what's going on when & where. The trick, in my
opinion, is to have a wide variety of experiences without having so
many that it's complete chaos. And, of course, some "control" by
listing official events (because you just know some would want it to
appear less "scripted" and want to be off the grid - that's ok, but if
too many do it, it gets confusing and was this for game x or game y).

Oh! and of course there has to be a huge crazy party. Maybe with some
costuming. Possibly with some roaming characters. Definitely with some
insane electronic augmented music sort of something or other.

(admittedly, I have been thinking about this a lot lately because of
ARGFest 2010 planning... hinthint... keep the ideas rolling ;))







On Sep 2, 2009, at 3:51 PM, John Evans wrote:

> So people would attend this event, interact with story characters,

> interact with each other, solve puzzles...Basically it sounds like

> Live Action Roleplaying without character sheets.  That's not a

> criticism, of course, I'm all for LARPing.



> -----Original Message-----

>> From: Michael Monello <mmonello at campfirenyc.com>

>>

>> What if ARGs had a festival, ala Fringe Fest or Come Out and Play,

>> where you could actually go and have ARG or ARG-like experiences?

>> What would that look like and how would it work?


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