[arg_discuss] What if ARGs had a real festival?

[Christopher Amherst]

Brooke,

If I recall, IO9 had an article on "Hacking at Random 2009", which
discussed a silent dancehall
where all the dancers had headphones

(Article at: http://io9.com/5339096/live-as-if-you-are-already-in-the-future-at-hacker-camp/gallery/
)

Think we all could do one better?

Chris


On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 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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