Field notes
What we've learned about crowd participation, hyping a room, and pointing cameras at audiences that would rather not be pointed at.
Christmas party games for large groups that aren’t trivia
Most “Christmas party games for large groups” lists are written for twenty people in a lounge room. At two hundred plus, in a venue,…
Read →What to do when half the room won’t play
It will happen. Some proportion of any audience does not join in, and how you handle it decides whether the activity works or dies.…
Read →When not to hype a crowd
Everything written about audience energy assumes more is better. It is not, and getting this wrong is worse than doing nothing at all. Why…
Read →Running a crowd game inside a tight run of show
Most advice about audience participation assumes you have as long as you want. In a real run of show you have a slot, it…
Read →Crowd games for festivals and outdoor events
Outdoor events are the best-lit and worst-behaved environment this technology operates in. Here is what changes when you take a crowd game outside. Daylight…
Read →Warm-up formats that work on a cold corporate audience
A cold corporate audience is the hardest warm-up in the business. Nobody chose to be there, several people are annoyed about the travel, and…
Read →The first thirty seconds are always awkward
Every crowd activity has the same shape. You explain it, and then there is a gap where nothing happens and it looks like it…
Read →Why phone-based audience interaction keeps failing
Phone-based audience tools have been the default answer to “how do we make this interactive” for over a decade. They are still the default,…
Read →How to hype a crowd before a keynote without a hype man
Hyping a crowd is usually described as a performance skill, which makes it sound like something you either have or you do not. It…
Read →Camera placement for crowd-controlled games: height, angle, and the 28% problem
Camera placement is the single biggest determinant of whether a camera-driven crowd game works. It matters more than the camera, more than the lens,…
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