50 + 42 points
Journey to the End of the Night: Vienna by fin
August 20th, 2009 4:36 PM
[meta: names prepended with @ are either twitter.com or soup.io users]
My story about this journey comes from an organizer's perspective and should give a behind-the-scenes look on how we managed to begins with me reading this text:
These are the opening lines of the Journey: Oakland report written by Audrey Penven, a member of the San Francisco hackerspace Noisebridge, which is partly how i stumbled over this.
After reading her report and a few others which were published on SF0, and after finding out that the original creators of the game published a "how to organize your own run" page and put the game under a free license, i decided that Vienna needed such an event, and that I would try to bring it here. I also received a lot of information and lessons learned from the original creators (mainly and Dax, who organized the Chicag0 runs.
Of course, one does not organize such a thing alone - via the metalab I soon found brothers-in-arms in @lfittl and @hyacint, who decided to be part of the orga team.
We first prepared for the event by doing some google maps scouting, after which we biked through vienna, visiting known and unknown locations and slowly working on a route. The location of the starting point was decided pretty soon, as we all loved the shallow pit in prater, all the other checkpoints were in heavy flux until a few days before the game.
Many other people helped with the preparations, most notably @c3o, who designed the great website & flyers, gem and @antifuchs made the trophies and a lot of other people who decided to staff checkpoints or be initial chasers. (There will be a "credits" page real soon nao!)
After completing most errands on the days before the game, I looked forward to a slow day in Prater before starting the game on Friday. Of course, I was wrong and did a lot of chaos response & last-minute stuff on that day. Luckily, I somehow made it to the Start at 19:30, at which time there were 15-20 people there - mostly chasers & friends who decided to come early.
Pretty soon, the initial chasers and I set out to paint arrows pointing to the pit on the asphalt (and to talk over the strategy they should use) and when coming back, the number of people had reached over 60 - and that was 10 minutes before 8PM. At that moment I realized that our goals have not only been reached but heavily surpassed!
Ribbons were being cut, maps were being handed out, everything seemed to run smoothly. The Mipro we borrowed from the GAJ was very helpful in informing the runners about the procedure.
After reading the rules in German & English and giving the runners another chance to grab their ribbons & maps, I started the game by warning them again that, even though this is a game, they could be hurt and by describing the agents on the first checkpoint.
It was an impressive sight, seeing >200 players start their journey, running towards checkpoint 1.
After supplying some late-comers with the needed materials & instructions, I set out for checkpoint 1 and saw lots of exciting chaser-runner encounters. While looking for checkpoint 1 with @rip (yes, orgas can get lost too!) I realized that we had too many chasers in the game already - even though we had massively restricted the initial chasers and they only had caught one runner maximum at this point.
"agents of the Austrian ministry for paranormal activities"
Eventually, I arrived there (all by bike) and saw the monochroms doing incredible work. Seeing that all was fine, I continued to go through the checkpoints.
Had the biggest safezone but was therefore pretty hard to find. It was in a dark part of the park, mostly because they lost half their staff on the way, and the half that was there was not the one carrying the prepared torches!
I let some runners drink from my water bottle and continued to checkpoint 3.
It was, by the way, staffed by @astera and Morgan.
most people i meet are chasers already, damnit (text message to twitter, didn't get through)
On my way to Checkpoint 3 "two white riddlers" (@clifford & @astrid) i conferred with my co-organizers and we devised a plan to allow chasers to resurrect and thus join the game - Checkpoint 3 agreed to take part in this and came up with a challenge, while we tried to figure out where we put the yellow "attention" tape and brought it there.
Now we would have three kinds of ribbons: blue for the runners, red for the chasers, yellow for the resurrected runners. We didn't announce this at the start and just hoped that our checkpoints would get the word out quickly enough :)
Shortly after having organized the resurrection sequence, I was told that a player had passed the last checkpoint (5) - one of our initial chasers went after him, but as the finish line was unstaffed at that point, i headed straight for that, only making a quick detour to checkpoint 4 "italian beach" staffed by joerg & ? from ovos and sadly had to skip checkpoint 5 "black as the night" staffed by mika, m68k, gem and georgyo (metalab & NYCR represent).
at #journeyvienna finish line - first runner through already! (text message to twitter, didn't get through)
Despite my best efforts, the first runner was in the end before I was - @red667 (one of the initial chasers), another chaser and our winner awaited me there. From then on it was mostly hanging out, sharing stories, recording arrivals and their times and generally socialization. I was impressed
While the first runner finished at 21:45, we decided to wait for a crowd to be there, and for all checkpoints to close before doing the closing ceremony.
We also realized that there were 2 waves of runners on their way, which made us keep the checkpoints open for a little longer than planned.
We finally closed the game at 00:45, after getting some drinks from the nearby metalab and finding out that the best chaser apparently caught 12 victims!
Checkpoint 3 also donated the collectively-created puzzle to the last arrival wearing his original (blue) ribbon.
After handing out prices, thanking everyone involved and all participants and announcing another instance "sometime in the future", we went to metalab to hang out & celebrate the start of plumbercon.
We're thinking heavily about creating another instance in October. Apparently, there's also a group forming to bring the Journey to Aachen, Germany!
Also, there seems to be no place in Europe that stocks surveyor's tape. I'll have to investigate this further.
My story about this journey comes from an organizer's perspective and should give a behind-the-scenes look on how we managed to begins with me reading this text:
It started in the amphitheater in Mosswood Park. Nicole, Ian and I walked the few short blocks from home. Nearly every seat in the place was filled and standing people took the space close to the stage. Casual chatting. Hugs. Tying on armbands. Looking at maps.
These are the opening lines of the Journey: Oakland report written by Audrey Penven, a member of the San Francisco hackerspace Noisebridge, which is partly how i stumbled over this.
The Preparations
After reading her report and a few others which were published on SF0, and after finding out that the original creators of the game published a "how to organize your own run" page and put the game under a free license, i decided that Vienna needed such an event, and that I would try to bring it here. I also received a lot of information and lessons learned from the original creators (mainly and Dax, who organized the Chicag0 runs.
Of course, one does not organize such a thing alone - via the metalab I soon found brothers-in-arms in @lfittl and @hyacint, who decided to be part of the orga team.
We first prepared for the event by doing some google maps scouting, after which we biked through vienna, visiting known and unknown locations and slowly working on a route. The location of the starting point was decided pretty soon, as we all loved the shallow pit in prater, all the other checkpoints were in heavy flux until a few days before the game.
Many other people helped with the preparations, most notably @c3o, who designed the great website & flyers, gem and @antifuchs made the trophies and a lot of other people who decided to staff checkpoints or be initial chasers. (There will be a "credits" page real soon nao!)
The Start
After completing most errands on the days before the game, I looked forward to a slow day in Prater before starting the game on Friday. Of course, I was wrong and did a lot of chaos response & last-minute stuff on that day. Luckily, I somehow made it to the Start at 19:30, at which time there were 15-20 people there - mostly chasers & friends who decided to come early.
Pretty soon, the initial chasers and I set out to paint arrows pointing to the pit on the asphalt (and to talk over the strategy they should use) and when coming back, the number of people had reached over 60 - and that was 10 minutes before 8PM. At that moment I realized that our goals have not only been reached but heavily surpassed!
Ribbons were being cut, maps were being handed out, everything seemed to run smoothly. The Mipro we borrowed from the GAJ was very helpful in informing the runners about the procedure.
After reading the rules in German & English and giving the runners another chance to grab their ribbons & maps, I started the game by warning them again that, even though this is a game, they could be hurt and by describing the agents on the first checkpoint.
It was an impressive sight, seeing >200 players start their journey, running towards checkpoint 1.
Where's checkpoint 1 again?
After supplying some late-comers with the needed materials & instructions, I set out for checkpoint 1 and saw lots of exciting chaser-runner encounters. While looking for checkpoint 1 with @rip (yes, orgas can get lost too!) I realized that we had too many chasers in the game already - even though we had massively restricted the initial chasers and they only had caught one runner maximum at this point.
Checkpoint 1
"agents of the Austrian ministry for paranormal activities"
Eventually, I arrived there (all by bike) and saw the monochroms doing incredible work. Seeing that all was fine, I continued to go through the checkpoints.
Checkpoint 2
Had the biggest safezone but was therefore pretty hard to find. It was in a dark part of the park, mostly because they lost half their staff on the way, and the half that was there was not the one carrying the prepared torches!
I let some runners drink from my water bottle and continued to checkpoint 3.
It was, by the way, staffed by @astera and Morgan.
most people i meet are chasers already, damnit (text message to twitter, didn't get through)
Resurrection & Checkpoint 3
On my way to Checkpoint 3 "two white riddlers" (@clifford & @astrid) i conferred with my co-organizers and we devised a plan to allow chasers to resurrect and thus join the game - Checkpoint 3 agreed to take part in this and came up with a challenge, while we tried to figure out where we put the yellow "attention" tape and brought it there.
Now we would have three kinds of ribbons: blue for the runners, red for the chasers, yellow for the resurrected runners. We didn't announce this at the start and just hoped that our checkpoints would get the word out quickly enough :)
Zomg-moment & Checkpoint 4
Shortly after having organized the resurrection sequence, I was told that a player had passed the last checkpoint (5) - one of our initial chasers went after him, but as the finish line was unstaffed at that point, i headed straight for that, only making a quick detour to checkpoint 4 "italian beach" staffed by joerg & ? from ovos and sadly had to skip checkpoint 5 "black as the night" staffed by mika, m68k, gem and georgyo (metalab & NYCR represent).
The End
at #journeyvienna finish line - first runner through already! (text message to twitter, didn't get through)
Despite my best efforts, the first runner was in the end before I was - @red667 (one of the initial chasers), another chaser and our winner awaited me there. From then on it was mostly hanging out, sharing stories, recording arrivals and their times and generally socialization. I was impressed
While the first runner finished at 21:45, we decided to wait for a crowd to be there, and for all checkpoints to close before doing the closing ceremony.
We also realized that there were 2 waves of runners on their way, which made us keep the checkpoints open for a little longer than planned.
Closing ceremony
We finally closed the game at 00:45, after getting some drinks from the nearby metalab and finding out that the best chaser apparently caught 12 victims!
Checkpoint 3 also donated the collectively-created puzzle to the last arrival wearing his original (blue) ribbon.
Par-tay
After handing out prices, thanking everyone involved and all participants and announcing another instance "sometime in the future", we went to metalab to hang out & celebrate the start of plumbercon.
Future
We're thinking heavily about creating another instance in October. Apparently, there's also a group forming to bring the Journey to Aachen, Germany!
Also, there seems to be no place in Europe that stocks surveyor's tape. I'll have to investigate this further.
9 vote(s)
3
JJason Recognition
5*la nerdrice*
4Rin Brooker
5done
5Spidere
5Lincøln
5Ben [Sunshine]
5anna one
5Burn Unit
Excellent.