Secondly, the\u00a0name riffed off a\u00a0long dead thing I\u00a0used to\u00a0organise, and\u00a0there’s almost none of\u00a0that left in\u00a0it. That former thing was a\u00a0conference, and\u00a0by\u00a0the\u00a0time I\u00a0stopped doing it I\u00a0was getting bored of\u00a0the\u00a0format and\u00a0was pretty sure I\u00a0could do something better.<\/p>\n
![\"Johann](\"http:\/\/bit-of-alright.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/photostream-3.jpeg\")
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One year later, I\u00a0spent the\u00a0morning of\u00a0BoA 2012 constantly running around fixing stuff, and\u00a0thought it was a\u00a0disaster until production manager Jo Summers made me sit down, eat lunch and\u00a0look at\u00a0Twitter. Everyone seemed to\u00a0be having a\u00a0lovely time. As\u00a0organiser, your job is to\u00a0confront everything that goes wrong, and\u00a0that gives you a\u00a0decidedly negative view. Most people don’t notice what’s broken. That’s even more true when you remove the\u00a0focus from a\u00a0stage and\u00a0construct even the\u00a0tiniest parts of\u00a0the\u00a0event to\u00a0allow people to\u00a0move their bodies and\u00a0attention around.<\/p>\n
BoA 2012 was a\u00a0sort of\u00a0controlled, distributed chaos throughout Battersea Arts Centre, and\u00a0something fantastic emerged from it. I\u00a0could only see that near the\u00a0end, when I\u00a0walked from a\u00a0room where Patrick Ashe was performing, through zombie LARPers, past people playing J.S. Joust under a\u00a0stained glass dome, into the\u00a0main hall past the\u00a0tea urns, Ninja, Lemon Jousting and\u00a0Ordnungswissenschaft<\/a>. Laughter and\u00a0the\u00a0sounds of\u00a0Proteus filled the\u00a0air.<\/p>\n We did it again in\u00a02013, but on\u00a0a\u00a0fishing trawler<\/a> at\u00a0Canary Wharf, and\u00a0that time it felt even more like it had an\u00a0identity, like we understood a\u00a0lot more of\u00a0what it was and\u00a0what we wanted it to\u00a0be. Loads of\u00a0smaller things clicked into place and\u00a0made us realise why they did or\u00a0didn’t work. It was as\u00a0if the\u00a0chaos were controlled and\u00a0let go much more appropriately, and\u00a0I’d started building a\u00a0crew who understood and\u00a0could deal with it.<\/p>\n Our general approach is that fewer rules makes for\u00a0a\u00a0better thing. That makes it stressful to\u00a0run because there are no lazy patterns or\u00a0habits you can rely on\u00a0as\u00a0organiser, but the\u00a0payoff is extraordinarily worthwhile. Most event organisers like things to\u00a0be smooth and\u00a0painless, as\u00a0glossy and\u00a0close to\u00a0TV perfection as\u00a0possible. We don’t. Screw that. There are much better things than roller banners and\u00a0DMX lighting to\u00a0spunk a\u00a0load of\u00a0money on\u00a0for\u00a0your event.<\/p>\n Game developers are the\u00a0most creative people I’ve ever met, because they don’t just make stuff: they’re making things in\u00a0the\u00a0midst of\u00a0a\u00a0largely uncharted medium, one with a\u00a0much bigger expressive range than most people realise. The\u00a0potential cultural influences, and\u00a0useful practice, are so wide that making developers sit still for\u00a0the\u00a0day seems cruel. There’s too much variation amongst small game developers for\u00a0just one thread of\u00a0content to\u00a0be relevant for\u00a0everyone.<\/p>\n We want our events to\u00a0be feral, filled with chaotic good, as\u00a0befits anything welcoming a\u00a0diverse bunch of\u00a0creative people. We have more ideas than we’re able do right now. There are so many directions Feral Vector will go from here.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n We’re most of\u00a0the\u00a0way through programming the\u00a0next one, which will be announced very soon, but if you have an\u00a0idea of\u00a0something you’d like to\u00a0do with a\u00a0small crowd in\u00a0London this June\/July drop us a\u00a0line on\u00a0hello@ Feral Vector is the\u00a0new name for Bit of Alright. When we started out with BoA, we weren’t a\u00a0hundred percent certain it was a\u00a0viable event, and\u00a0didn’t know if it would happen more than once. So of\u00a0course, it felt okay for\u00a0the\u00a0name to\u00a0be throwaway, an in joke coined during a\u00a0drunken night out with game developers and\u00a0journalists in\u00a0Brighton. Three years in, that’s definitely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about","category-why"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/feral-vector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/feral-vector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/feral-vector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feral-vector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feral-vector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=975"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/feral-vector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1004,"href":"https:\/\/feral-vector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975\/revisions\/1004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/feral-vector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feral-vector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feral-vector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"IMG_8891\"](\"http:\/\/bit-of-alright.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/IMG_8891.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"BOA0413-80\"](\"http:\/\/bit-of-alright.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/BOA0413-80.jpg\")
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