A MAZE./Johannesburg Feedback Requested
Hi All,
With Amaze still fresh in our minds, we (the organisers) would like to ask you (the attendees etc) your opinions, advise, suggestions, requests etc for Amaze for the future. What worked? What didn't work? What could be better?
We obviously have our own lists, but it would be great to hear from you about your impressions too. Just comment on this thread, I'll collect them all, and feed it back to the Amaze planning for next year.
best
With Amaze still fresh in our minds, we (the organisers) would like to ask you (the attendees etc) your opinions, advise, suggestions, requests etc for Amaze for the future. What worked? What didn't work? What could be better?
We obviously have our own lists, but it would be great to hear from you about your impressions too. Just comment on this thread, I'll collect them all, and feed it back to the Amaze planning for next year.
best
Comments
I feel a bit shortchanged by AMAZE - two things:
1. A lot of the cool talks and conferences were on friday morning during business hours so us 9-5 office workers were unable to attend. It would great if the hours could be adjusted next time. (friday afternoon to sunday perhaps?)
2. I found the schedule confusing - I wasnt sure when things were happening and the schedule on the website was still an unconfirmed draft version as the event was live and made no mention of the individual games that were going to be on show (If I had known Broforce was going to be demoed I would have made an effort to see it). I went to the alex theatre on opening night expecting it to be the best time to go but instead apparently there was an invite-only party happening elsewhere so the whole place was basically deserted.
Overall it was a very cool experience and I hope to get more out of it next time!
I have a couple of questions about post-event followup though: Are we going to see things appearing on Youtube? I know there were cameras around, but I felt like they were focusing on the famous international people rather than trying to record all the talks for people that couldn't make it in person. I think that putting AMAZE JHB talks up for people to access would help drive interest locally and get more internationals interested in coming to the event next year.
I'd like to add a huge THANK YOU to everyone involved for making AMAZE happen and especially for bringing not only European but also African developers down to JHB! It was wonderful talking to people that are trying to make things too and hear their successes/problems/ideas as they impact them in different parts of the world :)
Putting the games being demoed on the Alex stage was wonderful, as was having a bar right there in case of thirst.
And finally, I'll say sorry to the Wits students who I trolled into teaching me how to play En-Garde. I really enjoyed their changes to the game and they were doing a great job of getting people interested in the games they were showing off in the open air. They put in a lot of work and were cheerful and approachable throughout, thanks! I do hope that the "only clockwise attacks" rule they added to Ninja goes away though - that wasn't particularly fun ;)
The access control for the opening parties was something that was learned from last year - unfortunately the open air events got a bit inundated with street kids. I'm wondering how you knew it was invite only if you didn't get to them though? The second part at Kitcheners wasn't invite only at all - it was a regular club night with a list for AMAZE people to slip the cover charge ;)
I think you could get a lot more out of AMAZE if you were less worried about Braamfontein. It's not terrifying to walk around in, certainly better than some of the student areas I used to stay in! And if you have a car, driving around until you find people/the venue is definitely an option. Lots of the awesomeness that happens around a festival like AMAZE happens around social events after the main talks and things shut down. Remember that for next year!
- The program also said that the exhibitions were going ahead from 6pm on Thursday so that is all I focused on - I was only interested in seeing the games, not attending the party. As everyone was at the opening parties the exhibitions weren't manned by any of the game creators and whole areas werent manned at all (the downstairs board game sections).
- I found out about the party from a friend that eventually arrived at the Alex after being turned away from the party
- A lot of people are going to be worried about Braamfontein. ( @hanli I'd suggest hosting the entire thing on Wits Campus would make a WORLD of difference in terms of accessibility and openness of the whole event). I went to Alex by myself and I'm certainly not going to walk all over Braamfontein on a Thursday night alone!
None of these are really serious complaints or anything. There were a few organizational shortcomings, but I kinda forgot about them amidst all the awesome stuff that was happening :P But they are worth thinking about for next time I suppose.
I'm kinda torn about the other issues, like accommodation, and the stuff @Nitrogen is suggesting. The Bannister sounded kinda funny in its legendary terribleness! Personally, I don't feel that we're the kind of folk would should be outraged and appalled at the condition of the hotel (though I dunno, I only heard stories), but I think next time it would be good to have some alternatives.
On the whole, I would've liked there to be more communication about accommodation and travel options before the festival. I stayed with my aunt which was great, but I drove a hired car, and caught a bunch of taxis/lifts because I didn't want to risk driving around after some of those parties. I also got a wildly varying set of opinions about the safety of Braamfontein. What I'm getting at is that there appeared to be an ideal setup that should come recommended next time for maximum fun: Renting a (cheap) hotel in the immediate area, and walking around as a group to the various events. This also encourages hanging out and meeting other people. For the closing party, there were lifts offered to the people without cars, so this kind of thing made not having a car there almost more ideal (ie. meeting people, walking around, not worrying about having a few drinks).
Anyway, I know we were capable of working these things out for ourselves, but after seeing what other people were doing, it seems that being local and banding together made for a more fun time.
@nitrogen I understand your points about the opening nights as well as the Friday workshops. This will receive a lot more attention in future.
The guest list was a last minuet disaster as we were serving alcohol and the restriction was brought up out of no where. It was incomplete, and ill considered and I would like to apologise to all of those effected by it.
The exhibitions were intended more like art exhibitions I suppose, with people able to come in and see at their leisure, rather than as show floor exhibitions that are manned by creators to show and tell. I am sorry about the confusion there. I will make sure to outline this more carefully and think about the structure of those.
I would like to respond to your suggestion of hosting it on campus. I fully understand where you are coming from, and that this is a very real concern for you.
However, this is an ideological stand taken by all of the organisers and partners in AMAZE. There are several reasons that we actively choose to not do this. We would also never move the event to a 'corporate' or 'events' location.
Your argument is that it would increase the "accessibility and openness" of the event. However, it would do the exact opposite. By gating the event behind the rigid security systems and extensive sign in procedures required for the university and at other such venues we would be demarcating it as the terrain of a privileged few, rather than open to the public. AMAZE hopes to draw many divergent audiences as it grows. The audience that would feel safer in this kind of environment is important to us, but it is not our sole audience, nor should it ever be. Braamfontein offers a good middle ground. It is also where many of us work, and live, and walk every day.
I am sorry that you do not feel safe in Braamfontein, and I will try to have a more extensive security presence in future years to help address this.
Why would you assume that game creators would be manning their games during an opening ceremony held elsewhere?
Obviously I can't dissuade you of your belief in the terrifying dangers of Braamfontein (I tried, but your perception of your own danger is a difficult thing to test against reality, I can understand that the costs of getting it wrong are high) - but I do feel that containing AMAZE within WITS is a bad idea. The current setting, the Alexander Theatre is amazing as a venue. Much socialising and awesome idea forming happens around food during AMAZE, people would be walking to the closest places for food from WITS anyway, right now AMAZE is in the middle of a bunch of places to eat that cater for almost all budgets and tastes. Socialising happens and doesn't end up wasting large amounts of travel time. WITS access hours are going to be tricky and parking at universities is always a hassle, especially during the day - people are going to have to park outside WITS anyway and head to parties/bars/clubs after the event closes down too.
The only positive thing I can see coming from WITS is that you personally would feel less worried. That's cool, unless your worry is disproportionate. A much easier way to deal with that worry would be to organise a time to meet up via the forums and then move around in a group :)
-edit- Aha, ninja'd by @hanli already! Well said.
The terrible Bannister was terrible, but is hopefully getting a make over, so it will be a little less terrible next year. But we will look for alternatives. I will definitely look at making a 'where to stay and how to travel' thing too.
Post fest things: all talks were recorded. Video's are being cut, and we hope to put the talks up on youtube.
@hanli: YAY! ALL THE YAYS FOR ALL THE THINGS! :D
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Though crits for A Maze. Segregated venues: having to wonder around to find things when we could fit it all in one place. I think less time finding things and more time doing things would be win.
Times, ye the online times and the ones at the venue were mixed up. Telling me a workshop begins at 9 kinda means that I won't really make an effort to be there for it. (Though I have to say making it there by 9:30 might be a stretch given the number of accidents that had happened on the M1, some of us have quite some distance to get there)
Also the time between can feel rather slim, and kinda leads to a lot of trying sheppard people into a talk. I know that it took some effort to get people to stop playing joust, aka stopping the computer running joust.
Parking was also somewhat a pain in the ass metro charging quite a bit, and parking is somewhat of a scarcity if you want to get right near the theatre.
But in terms of the overall event I think these are kinda minor things, and I've already spoken to @Hanli about them so I am looking forward to next year.
@hanli and @dislekcia: Okay, I see you're not going to move it from Braamfontein, but it would help to have a bit more structure to it like you suggest. Part of the reason I personally didnt feel safe was that there were very few people around on thursday night - there were about 4-6 AMAZE personnel inside the Alex showing people the games and about 5-6 visitors at the time but the streets were more or less deserted with no flow of people moving between the venues.
Possibly the only problem here was that I went at the wrong time and should have visited on the friday evening when things were in full swing.
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First of all, congrats for the awesome event :D I don't think I need to say anymore how great it was, because I'd just be repeating myself ad nauseum.
So let me get to the point of this thread: Constructive criticism!
1. I've had a few friends who expressed that they didn't know when or where to go for the event. I think there's a few factors to this -
a) The website's home page has equal weighting to a lot of stuff, causing people to be confused about which things to look at first and eventually gave up looking for *that one link*. I think people need to primarily know when everything is, and where they are, before reading about any of the other stuff.
b) The programme being quite confusing to follow - the spreadsheet format could be cleaned up a bit, and as @Nitrogen said, it was permanently on "draft mode" which compounds the confusion.
c) A few people had problem finding the website, I'm not sure why, I could find it, but maybe my search history helped?
2. Yes, the Friday. It was disappointing to see that it seemed like most of the talks happened during office hours. On the same note, I thought it was kinda strange that the closing wasn't on Sunday - I had mistakenly thought that the closing was on Sunday and therefore thought the Pecha Kucha was on Sunday... It was a good thing I dug around a bit to confirm, but a few other people were expecting to go to Amaze on the Sunday too. Maybe this could be averted with clearer communication of times/dates from point 1). But having things during office hours did cut out a lot of attendance possibilities... I know this is aimed at indies, but a lot of us are part-time indies... for now at least...
3. More of international people introductions in the material - either online or on brochure - so we knew who were whom and looked like what. So that when I see the creator of Wasteland Kings playing Wasteland Kings I don't hang around like an idiot but instead can gawk like an idiot :P
4. I remember the event was mentioned on radio the previous year, did that happen this time around too?
What happened to the game jam? Was it a success? Will it happen again next year? I think the idea has merit but don't think having it over AMAZE is good. Perhaps before so the entries and photos could be part of AMAZE.
A few other thoughts.
- I would have loved to get a t-shirt or some memorabilia. (If there were any I missed them)
- Was there a common #hashtag been used that I could have searched on and seen other tweets and remarks from the event?
- I 2nd @dislekcia's question about the video footage and extend it to photos. (I have seen a few online photo dumps but now sure if there is a official AMAZE 2013 one.
- I found the web program cryptic not completely inaccessible but certainly not concise and viewable from a single screen.
- Press? I know a bunch of reporters I personally invited to come see (and didn't pitch). Was certainly not enough show from the usual suspect I know of. More coverage would be good, leading up to and during the event.
- The talks were great although a little cramped, more space for them might be needed if the event is to grow further.
On @Nitrogen's point about the safety at night in Braamfontien, I am not sure if its valid or not these days but I can say the concern did cross my mind. If it crossed two peoples minds it might be worth addressing in PR at least to settle peoples concerns or give them good guidelines on how to be safe. The optimist in me hopes its just outdated irrational fear. I am not sure there is a specific action point associated with this, and it would never be something that keeps me away from AMAZE.
As for things that I saw there that really helped and would like to see next year again.
- The casuals that were helping people and directing us all to the various places, that was great.
- JOUST was a great crowd mixer and I was really impressed with how everyone got a chance and was roped in.
- Talks were great but I feel I missed too many only been there 1 day.
- Local content games wise. Hope to see more next year.
About the Braamfontein issue - I do think part of the problem was the wide distances between the venues, if the venues were all clustered together in a block or two, it wouldnt have been so much of an issue to walk alone. That was also why I suggested Wits, as the venues could have been much more tightly packed.
I felt the party at the Jozi hub, and the Petcha Kutcha, was very successful. Like Manikin mentioned, I was one who benefited from staying nearby and not having transport and so relying on the esteemed folks of Johannesburg's ample generosity.
I felt the calibre of talks this year was excellent, though I wish there could have been a few more art/expression/creative talks (A lot of the talks were industry talks - which were excellent nevertheless).
I really enjoyed visiting Wits as well. It was a real privilege to get that as a bonus to my Amaze experience.
However! Some criticism that is hopefully constructive.
I'm totally looking forward to staying in some disused attic, or in an empty septic tank with one other thing, at the Bannister Hotel next year. I hope they change their name again, still have a bunch of rooms without any floors, still have the same doorman with spotty English framed by that cheesy Afro-chic artwork, and the whole building is exhibited as a piece of concept art critiquing Western living practices.
That said, while I may be comfortable in colorful accommodation, I wish better hotels upon our foreign visitors, and from what I gather they wish better hotels upon themselves as well. There are a bunch of better hotels nearby, I hope next year we can let the foreign visitors know about them.
If a volunteer is needed to warn foreigners of the Bannister I'm happy to fill that role.
Something else! I personally struggle to arrive at anything at 9, and I stay up late chatting and playing Ninja compulsively. I'd be happier if most talks and workshops started no sooner than a stately 12 o'clock... and seeing as there are folks at work during office hours, I wouldn't mind it if the focus was on the afternoon/evenings.
However I understand that other people do do things in the morning by choice, and may even prefer participating at game conferences during those hours. I understand that their lifestyle's differ from mine, and that they manage to go through life in this manner despite their choices, but nevertheless I do feel that they are incorrect.
And one other thing! It's not a criticism of Amaze. But I felt that the number of South African games being exhibited was a little thin (there weren't many more than the year before, there may have been fewer). I hope we can produce a lot of awesome games within the next 11 months. I'm certainly intending to have something to show next year. I hope that with our MakeGames competitions and expanding community we can beat our past selves at game making.
@hanli Ah, thanks for that info on the talks/media stuff, that's good to know! They were really terrific talks. This is really relevant, and something I hadn't thought of re: hosting at WITS. I've commented on this before, but it was such fun seeing a bunch of kids discovering the Alex theatre and spending all day playing the games! I love the idea that some of the games were shown in the theatre's display, partly to lure the public in. It definitely makes the whole thing more open.
Just again in terms of safety stuff: It's good to hear people saying that Braamfontein isn't too dangerous. I really don't like echoing this sentiment that we all should've been terrified. I worry about everything naturally, and in combination with nobody seeming to have a solid understanding of the place, I turned into a bit of a wreck which was silly. I think the key is to still stick around with people, but it doesn't do us any good to limit our movements based on some weird misunderstanding of the place. We're all pretty South African-savvy when it comes to safety, so that should really be enough.
Again, many thanks to all you guys who organized the festival, it was so much fun!
A lot of these are things we have been talking about internally, and it is nice to have them confirmed. Things we feel strongly about addressing next year that have been reiterated in all of your comments:
1) better fundraising - most of the comments can only be addressed through additional funding. We have started this already as funding budgets for next year are being finalised now.
2) consolidated venue - marching around for different content just doesn't work.
3) better communication:
a) media leading up to the event
b) the website needs to be re-conceptualised entirely
c) the program needs to be tidied up, controlled more, and communicated better
d) better use of social media (the #tag is a great idea)
e) There wasn't a news letter this year, but I think its a great idea going forward.
4) timing of content - shifting talks as far out of working hours as possible, and allowing more time between them
5) security for attendees and better arranged transport.
6) accommodation for attendees. (I have no practical ideas here yet, but I will work on it)
7) MOAR GAMESES. There were many more SA games than last year, but I want to grow this further.
8) Increased International and African participation.
9) better trained staff - I think the kids did a great job, but we didn't have sufficient time to train them fully.
10) more talks like the Pecha Kucha
My favourite line from your comments so far:
@BlackShipsFilltheSky
About the Bannister: "and the whole building is exhibited as a piece of concept art critiquing Western living practices."
A truer word has never been spoken :D