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[Blindlookout]

How to stage real-world events

[catherwood]

Re: How to stage real-world events

[Blindlookout]

Re: How to stage real-world events

[kieto]

You're looking at co-creation of value in alternate reality games then?

Try something like flash mobs, especially non-professional flash mobs.

Experiential marketing is also another thing you might want to look at; there's quite a few comedy-based teams on youtube which do stunts and gags that involve the audience. Although they're not precisely 'players' they do influence the art by being there.

Ylvis' elevator video is interesting there as well.

Look at how cons run LARPs, or the SCA or reconstructees (?) do those massive battles, RenFaire, etc.

Are you looking at the examples specifically to alternate reality games, or as an overall theme? Because your examples cover more realms than ARGs alone, but many of them aren't technically 'games' either.

Yankee's posted in News and Rumors about the Latitude, which is by the same man who did the Jejune Institute, so you might be able to learn some from it.

I'd say it's just similar to organizing any large-scale event in the 'real-world', but with an addendum of going with the artistic flow.

What problem specifically are you having with organizing real-world events?

[Blindlookout]

You had some good tips here. And you're right, I am looking beyond ARGs. I'm really just interested in getting people out of their homes and creating participatory art where the coordinator (or puppetmaster) is never seen and only conducts the action in a general way.

It's not that I'm trying to solve a problem, but rather I'm looking for tips and best-practices so that when I do this it goes off as well as possible. I don't suppose anybody's written a guide on this kind of thing?

Also... where can I find more info on Breathe? It seems all their video is gone.

[kieto]

http://www.wikihow.com/Organize-a-Flash-Mob

http://civilwartalk.com/threads/help-ideas-for-organizing-a-reenactment.18519/
This one talks about contacting a local re-enactment unit and talking to someone.

Actually one of the best ways would be to talk to someone who's organized an event like what you're looking to do before and get their opinion (especially about what went wrong <- there will always have been something going wrong)

Breathe? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_svivXGrgSM
Is this what you're looking for?

[Blindlookout]

Nice resources! Thanks!

[kieto]

http://www.breathewith.me/

They're looking to gear up for a new season, they probably pulled the old one for clues and things. They have a mailing list, so you could sign up, or perhaps message them OOG and ask to speak to them if you don't want to play, etc.

I like helping you, but I'm literally finding all of these on the first page of Google.

http://deaddrop.wonderweasels.org/category/games/breathe/
http://deaddrop.wonderweasels.org/2009/10/12/breathe-live-event-london/
http://deaddrop.wonderweasels.org/category/games/breathe/

(Breathe might be a little out of reach for your budget, unless you're secretly terribly rich and I've got no clue)

[Blindlookout]

Ok, thanks for that. Between this and a pile of resources some local professors have given me, I've got a good start on this thing.

Can I ask... what's happening to ARGs? Unfiction.com is out of date, Despoiler is broken, ARG Deaddrop hasn't seen an update since 2012... have they gone out of style, or are there other websites that have more active updates?

[Suspect]

kieto: That page has been the same since 2009. Season 2 isn't happening.

https://web.archive.org/web/20100612105544/http://www.breathewith.me/

Some time after the first one ended, they pulled down the old site content and put that page up. Apparently the episodes are still up on Vimeo, though, which I didn't realize before. But that's not really helpful in learning about the live events or behind-the-scenes work.

Blindlookout: I don't want to say "yes", but... yes, ARGs as we knew them have pretty much gone out of style. There are some experiences here and there, but they're nowhere near what they used to be. Companies with big ad budgets stopped investing in them, and without the big commercial productions the medium lost its momentum.

[Blindlookout]

Suspect you are the king! I knew the videos had to be on Vimeo somewhere but I wasn't able to find them. These aren't everything but they'll do.

So what do you think is behind the fading of the ARG scene?

[kieto]

Thanks, Suspect.

Blind, don't let the fading of the medium stop you from organizing an event!

My personal opinion on the fading thing is probably because of age. The Beast and IloveBees happened early in the 00's, and we're in the mid '10s. It takes a lot of money, time, and effort, to fund big ARGs, and people need to sign up for it. A muted version of an ARG is just a scavenger hunt, which is what some companies are still doing - Everybody's Gone To The Rapture had one.

Secondly, I think there's lots of choice - too much choice, too little people caring. The number of people playing hasn't really grown with time.

Suspect probably knows more, since he was around for it.

Yo, Suspect. I've been looking at the walkthroughs for the Beast and IloveBees again. If there was a company with a massive budget looking to fund an ARG, what differentiates the best ARGs from other things?