After Sandpit #5

It’s a few days since Sandpit #5, and gosh it was a summery one: after a day spent anxiously checking weather reports, we turned up to sunlight on the Hayward’s vast terraces, and players clustering on chalk-drawn labyrinths to hum like bees.

Reflections of Sandpit 5.

In Checkpoint, the smugglers carried the day again, enlisting the help of passers-by to smuggle the inflatable red mattress into the Hayward without being spotted by border guards; the Lost Sport of Olympia turned out to use quite a lot of chalk; and Skylarking with Francis Barking saw players rummaging around the terraces looking for coal, chalk and sticks and then brandishing them in dramatic three-way stand-offs.

Some Comfort of Strangers players suffered from technical problems, but those who managed to persevere were rewarded with roses. And so many players turned up for Situationist Nomic that the game split into two groups, each trying to create a work of art. One team managed a multicoloured pattern which they decided was merely a scrawl, in an 80%-majority vote; but the other team repealed every rule and threw away their piece of paper, and decided that that was definitely art.

Whether you came to the Sandpit or not, remember you’ve got until this Friday to design a game and put in an entry for our design competition; one entry will be chosen to run at the Hayward Gallery during the festival, with a £1000 budget. It probably helps if you’ve seen the Psycho Buildings exhibition, but it’s not a prerequisite.