Now Play This has ended

By which I mean, it's the day after the final day of the final Now Play This. I don't know if I have any coherent thoughts on how I feel to put out there, but I'm gonna see if they come to me as I write.

(some context for people unfamiliar: Now Play This is – was – a festival of games and play, happening annually in April at Somerset House. Typically there was an exhibition, workshops, events around it. Somerset House is a pretty fancy cultural venue in the center of London, and we lived up to that setting – we showed videogames, boardgames, street games, playful art, everything that could fall under that umbrella, all mixed up together by theme. It was not just a festival for game developers, but for the general public, families, the curious. It was pretty great! And, with my friend Holly, I was one of the co-founders, 10 years ago)

In the approach to the festival, I was feeling pretty sanguine about it ending. The executive producer had stepped away, and I'd stepped up to do some of the finance-y bits, so I was more looped into conversations about the festival than I had been in years. It felt good to be more involved (but also I had stepped up because I knew it was One Last Job). I was wondering if I had some deep feelings hidden away somewhere.

And at the end of the last day, we had a little session for game event organisers to come together and talk about how to make events happen. What the barriers are, what the questions are. And at the end of that we had a little moment to talk about the ending of the festival, and give away flowers to the people who had been part of making it happen. And I had the mic for a sec to say something, and I talked about how it felt 10 years back, and what we expected, and what we hoped, and how that compares to looking across a room of people now, who care about the event. And knowing all of the people out there who have cared about it, and who have been touched by the event, and it feels pretty special to have gotten to make it happen, and pretty special too that it continued after we stepped away and other people decided they wanted to step up and continue to make it happen.

Anyway, I teared up a little while I was talking about this, and feeling this sense of love and connection. So, yes, I guess I do have some feelings.

But right now they aren't loss, they're feelings of love and connection and appreciation. 10 years, huh! Pretty good going!!

Anyway, it's the next morning now, and Jo who was staying with me has just left for home (Jo Summers, who has done tech for every Now Play This, who I have spent many hours cursing at cables next to), and I am looking at the internet, and I can see so many traces of the event still lingering. Photos circulating from the dinner after the pub, a friend thanking an artist for a workshop and talking about how they're still working on it. Thoughts about a little game I played that Seb (a former director of the festival) is working on. Notes from a rules tweak for Liar's Shuffle I should post. Someone I was talking to last night set up a Downpour account. And these are just the immediate traces...

Anyway —

Lots I could think about about why it ended, and how it could have survived, and how to run events in the new landscape, and sustainability, and what changes an event like this might cause, and who might care and who might be a comrade in making these things happen. And lots of work to do, to close down the organisation and pay all the invoices from the event, and archive the things we'd like to archive. But I think I'll end this here, with a feeling of love and appreciation for all the people who have made the event possible. It changed my life, I'm so glad it's happened. It's just — just a real cool thing to have gotten to do!!