Best Festival Ever: How to Manage a Disaster

This fascinating work of interactive theatre allows attendees to participate as much as they feel comfortable doing so. It’s part theatre, part board game, and even partly a lecture. Come with a friend, or make new friends on the evening as you work together while sitting around a very long table to create what could well be the Best Festival Ever. While working together, playing games with consequences for your festival, and interacting with the narrative, you are incidentally learning more about things like systems science, game theory and more. While some might wonder at the artificiality of the set-up, I found it to be interesting, fast-paced, and fun. The facilitators from Applespiel are Nathan Harrison, Nikki Kennedy and Rachel Roberts who lead us through the story of how our festival develops and what we must consider in its creation.

Part of the fun is not knowing exactly how the festival might turn out – could it be wonderful or a disaster? Will the headline act be amazing? What will the weather be like? Nothing is set in stone. All I can say is that one should come with an open mind and a willingness to participate, and do stay for a drink and a brief talk afterwards by a guest speaker. On the night we attended, Nicky Griff from CSIRO spoke to us and answered questions. It was particularly engaging.

Boho Interactive is a science-theatre ensemble from Canberra, Australia. Boho produces interactive performances based on sciences including Game Theory, Complex Systems science and Network Theory, working in collaboration with research scientists from Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisaton and University College London. Boho is represented here by David Finnigan and David Shaw. For this project, Boho was joined by members of Sydney collective, Applespiel.

In Science Week 2015, this is the perfect event for those who are keen on theatre.

Rachel McGrath-Kerr

Photo credit: Novel Photographic Shelly Higg.