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 small, band-related ARG

[pollux11]

PS:

[imbri]

Hey Pollux

One thought that I'll throw out there is that you guys have a nice situation in that you're doing something local. Do you have names & addresses for your the people in your fan base or some of the more active ones? Do you know clubs and places where they'd hang out?

If you want to create a mystery surrounding the date, then I'd send them a flier of sorts with nothing but the date or, maybe, have the background be a cool symbol that fits with the overall theme that you want to keep a bit more "hidden" and then the date in big letters on top of it. If I got something like that in the mail, I'd be curious. Then I'd hit them up again in a couple weeks with the exact same thing with the venue listed. Then just a couple days before the show, with the band name and some more details added to it.

You could go with this same approach if you know the clubs they hang out at and then just do an (admittedly slightly annoying) drop on all the windshields (or just theirs if you know their cars).

If you have any new music that you've recorded, you could always take bits and pieces of the songs and put them on a cd or thumb drive and get those to them as well. If your fan base contains a rather tight knit group of friends, it would be pretty cool to send each of them (you could even do this via email) a portion of the song (say a 30 second clip) and let them realize that they there are a few different clips of it out there that they could piece together.

The big trick with ARGs (well, with life in general, but especially with smaller grassroots args), is to take advantage of what you have and to turn your weaknesses into strengths. Don't know if that advice will help you any, but there you have it

[notgordian]

Since, as you said, you're not dealing with a crowd that is likely to be big on the puzzles, it might be worth taking a look at some of the more experiential things (SF0, the WhySoSerious stuff) for ideas on emphasizing on bringing gameplay to the public space.

For instance, have a friend hang out at a coffee shop in distinctive dress (maybe imbri's symbol idea on a shirt or something) and tell your fans to check out the location between certain hours. If they approach him/her, have something cool planned (either a scavenger hunt-type thing, short speech, or hint that it's something you guys are involved in)

A big thing you want to consider is what kind of time frame you're dealing with--is this going to be a day-long thing you're planning, a week-long thing, or will it extend beyond the concert and be a vehicle you use to generate a broader audience?

[FLmutant]

Pollux, before I did any of this stuff, I was in those indie band trenches. Striving for too much is going to be biggest your enemy, so focus on ways to keep it small. Because it is there, in your local region, you can have alot of fun with playing with your friends by adopting this fiction, they don't need to know it's an ARG ... just that your up to something.

Instead of writing something new, think about ways to take the lyrics you've already written and blow them out into your narrative: write what you know is the perfect adage for this case.

Dates are hard to keep mysterious for too long, and ulimately you don't want the biggest secret to be the event you want to get people to turn out to, so make sure you give yourself plenty of time after that reveal to still get people to your gig -- otherwise, you might mysterious yourself into an empty house.

Sounds like a lot of fun, best of luck on that initiative!

[jscdragon]