Hello you!
Welcome to Open. It’s all about you and your event.
Want to find out more? Read on. If you know what Open is and just want to pitch your event head here.
It’s how and where you turn your idea into an actual thing. You can do anything.* It’s a platform where you can show off your game, organise a gig or make Mario cakes. See, anything.
What is Open?
Every year we always receive tons of great event ideas. Unfortunately we’ve always struggled to find the space, time and funding to make them work. Then it occured to us. We decided to let people run their own events. We’d find a load of spaces in Nottingham’s various venues and let people run their own events under the GameCity banner.
It worked. Last year was the first year of Open and we had some great events. Rebecca Gamble ran a live, participatory performance in Lee Rosy’s that blurred the boundaries between physical and digital spaces whilst NottHack made afternoon tea deadlier by adding a laser assault course and local artist’s group Engagement:Party created an interactive exhibition space.
This year we want more. More things and more variety.
Building blocks
Open is made up of two parts: places and things.
A place is our part of the deal. We’ve gone and rounded up some of the best venues across Nottingham’s city centre. There’s a whole list of them right here. There’s quite a range of them. We’ve got tea shops, cafés, pubs and restaurants as well as our own tents which make up the festival base on Old Market Square.
A thing is down to you. They’re the most important part of Open. Your thing can be anything. Pick something you want to show off or something you’re good at and structure an event around it. It doesn’t matter what your thing is. What matters is that you’re really, really passionate about it. Oh, and that you have the skills and equipment to run it.
The snag
Open for us is a way of squeezing in a load of great events into the festival line-up without our workload becomming unwieldy. What this means is that you have to be prepared to do a lot of the leg work for your event.
We provide a few bits. The place for your event, a little bit of basic marketing, maybe a couple of stewards and of course our expertise. You need to do the rest. You need to think about things like the equipment you need, travel, other people to help you and a little of your own marketing targetted at the audience you want to attract.
We are open to helping people a little more. If there’s something you need just ask, the worst we can do is say no.
How to get involved
So perhaps you have an idea for a thing and are wondering how to get involved. Perhaps you want to bake some cakes, read some poetry, show off your latest game or talk about your favourite one, perhaps you’d like to teach people how to knit or perform some live music.
Event submission for GameCity7 will be available very soon so please check back in the near future.
We recommend giving our handy guide a quick read, especially if you’ve never run an event before. It goes through everything you need to think about before you propose an event. Oh, and also exactly what to put in each bit of the form.
If you have any questions ask in our support section.
We can’t wait to hear from you!
* Dependant on legality and the laws of the universe.