Overview
The hard partying life of interactive installations
For a decade Jared worked on and then directed the official SXSW Interactive opening party. As The Verge put it “… first it was just a chance for a few nerds to get drunk. Then it got so big, the fire department came and shut it down. Now it’s become a sort of high tech art fair meant to spark a conversation about the future of the digital world.” The event grew to be thousands of people & became a large scale social experiment featuring several interactive installations yielding insights on the future. Though that party has ended the experiments continue with MakerFaire.
This is the story behind the party, the formulas it ran on and the small things learned over the years building small and large installations. Jared will cover things he learned in executing the installations, but also little things like how signage strategy can help press coverage and exactly the distance a tent needs to be from a fence in order to keep a fully grown and supposedly responsible man who is probably a tech director at some big company from peeing back there.
Target Audience
If you are interested in experiential, interactive art or installations, parties, futurism or arcades this is a great session for you. There will be lots of video, tips, tricks & a demo or two.
Five things audience members will learn
- 3 approaches for involving interactivity into an event
- Tips & tricks on building large installations at low cost
- If a real DJ is better than a crowd sourced DJ
- The psychology of crowds & using signage effectively
- The exact distance a tent can be from a wall to keep drunken geeks from peeing back there
