Have been very busy this week – two  days in London for the game at Southbank Centre, three days in Utrecht to teach a class of  students about project management. Both were very enjoyable, but all together the pace was somewhat hectic. While travelling to Utrecht and back I had time to reflect on the Southbank Centre game  So, here go some notes on pro’s and con’s.

 

This is what went well:

– Hide & Seek organisation very professional – everything well organised and well planned, nice people to work with;
– the event drew a sizeable crowd of young adults. Apparently Hide & Seek  has an in-crowd that always shows up for events. H&S invites via e-mail list, website and word-of-mouth;
– my game was outside on the square behind Southbank Centre, the other games were played in the ballroom inside. Ballroom opens out to a balcony overlooking the square. A lot of people watched my game – the view from the balcony was nice – yet very few people came out to play. Fortunately, a lot of passers-by played, so I did not lack numbers;

– it’s the big crayons that draw people to the game;

–  less jumping and more drawing done than at the games I did in the Netherlands. Was this caused by me using text? Or is it the british public being different?

–  the format – circles, arrows and text – held up very well. As we can see in the overview picture. Some intelligent variations were developed, some very funny stuff, too;

– we ended up with a complete labyrinth –  a huge drawing on the square. overflowing to the sidewalks and the street;

– I stopped people writing on the wall – a lesson learned in Utrecht earlier;
– game became a photo opp for a lot of people. Note: ask people to upload photos?

– drawing contours was a popular side-show. Idea: do a giant drawing based on this?

– a lot of fun text appeared – how about ‘everything that’s not about elephants is irrelevant’. Or a square – ‘be different’.

– and some of sad text, too.

 

This is what could be done better: 

– I did not invite passers-by that played my game to go inside and play some more. Missed chance?
– there was a drunk who became agressive. I asked security to deal with this, which they did. One crayon got smashed to pieces meanwhile – which was scary.

–  Drawing spread like wildfire – some swear words and penises appeared at unsupervised edges -not nice;
– I did not stop people writing on the large circle that supports the square’s statue – but I should have.

– I did not notice people writing swear words and penises – but I should have.

So: the game may need a larger number of facilitators. Or else we’d need to delineate it from the start in order to avoid unsupervised corners. Or else I’d need to control acces to the crayons. So: more research has to be done!