Athens Plaython; playing street games in a broken economy

2011 was a year of many changes in my life; firstly I switched jobs and went from working in a school to working in the field of online learning. Then I switched continents and went from being a devoted Brooklynite to splitting my time traveling between Europe and the US. But most importantly I launched a project called “Athens Plaython” in my hometown of -yes you guessed it right-…Athens, Greece, after seven years of absence (1 week long vacations dont really count), due to me living abroad.  So this blog post will be dedicated to that project and all the great things related to look forward in 2012.

First a bit of background; as you probably already know Greece has been in the middle of an international financial turmoil, often making headlines this past year -yes people take a very concerned look these days when I tell them I am Greek. Truth is things are not as melodramatic as the international press tends to depict them, but the morale is indeed low and the streets are often flocked with angry protesters marching against the austerity measures. So when me and my very talented friend Artemis Papageorgiou started discussing this past summer about working on a project together, doing something playful and FUN in the streets that are often flooded with demonstrations, was the first thing that popped into our mind. 

Following the footsteps of our friends at Come Out And Play in NYC and SF but also groups like Invisible Playground in Berlin, Hide and Seek in London and IgFest in Bristol we decided pretty much in a day to start our own street games festival in Athens- with a twist; not only have a group of awesome big sized games for Athenians to play, but also include a set of workshops that will help youth and adults design their own city sized games & learn about new technologies. 

In typical game design fashion we decided to “play-test” our idea and planned a quick launch in November to test peoples response. We invited friends from NYC, Finland and Athens to showcase some of their best games, mixed in DJ’s from Athens’ hippest indie radio station, partnered with the citys’ best online city guide and included a set of workshops for kids… et voila (many sleepless hours later) we had what you would call a “working prototype” within 2 months of planning! And it looked like the video below…

Around 1000 people attended our event from all kinds of backgrounds and ages, notably playing non-stop for four hours, filling up the space, mind you - during the evening of a highly anticipated soccer game between the two major leagues in the country. Big part of the reason was the great games we had the honor to host; from Gigantic Mechanic’s Shadowplay, to Kaho Abes’ Hit Me, to Christos Iosifidis & Douglas Wilson  Joust, to Eleni Savidou’s Moustag to Brendon Trombleys’ and Maria Mavroudis’ “Pickpocket”. We also included a workshop for kids in the mix (which sold out that week), were along with their parents, kids designed games for their city and learned how to use conductive materials and LED lights to build a basic circuit.  Moreover a bunch of 15 superhero volunteers helped us with everything that had to do with running the event to keeping our cool when things went wrong.

After all was done and we could take a deep breath and start focusing on a bigger festival to launch in September 2012, an unexpected set of good news arrived; we got an award for placing second in a competition organized by the local TEDxAthens conference, where we got to present our idea in a five minute (very stressful) talk. Once again it was amazing to see people’s positive response to games and it only encouraged us to keep “playing”. With that said, one of my favorite moments of the day was playing “Ninja” with a bunch of TEDxsters, one of them wearing a broken leg cast - who remained undefeated till the last round!

To sum up, our goal upon launching the project was to introduce a platform for the local community to come together through playing, interacting and learning. It was our attempt of proposing a lifestyle infused and surrounded by playfulness as a means to improve our everyday encounters and urban experiences. We asked Athenians to get out on the streets and re-imagine their cityscape, use a bench as their headquarters, play with projections on the walls and draw moustaches on their faces. And they did it! In the months to come our tiny team will be growing, we will be seeking more funds to build our festival the way we want it and most importantly; dear Athens we look forward to playing with you more :)