How to Host a BANG
Bay Area Night Game What's BANG?/About Past BANGs Teams Mailing List How to Host a BANG How to Write a BANG Puzzle Hall of Fame
Hosting a BANG is simple: Get a team, write some puzzles, test those puzzles (repeatedly), make lots of copies, and hand them out to teams who walk by at a specific location at a specific date and time. Tell teams if they get the answer right, or help them find their way. Determine who won, if anyone. Kick back with your favorite drink with the knowledge a job well done.
Want more in-depth advice? Read on!
The Responsibility
"Any team that regularly plays in BANG should plan to produce one at some point."
The Bay Area Night Game is produced by volunteers only. There is no requirement for anybody to run one, though it is strongly suggested that the winner of BANG - or at least the highest placing team that has not hosted a previous BANG - host one within a year. This tradition, though, has fallen by the wayside and so it is up to every player to become not just a consumer, but a producer of this puzzle hunt. "Give back" is the key phrase here.
It is a tremendous responsibility, but don't be cowed by that. Your BANG can be as easy or hard as you want, as simple or complex as you want. If you decided to hand out six standard paper puzzles (word searches, crosswords, cryptograms, etc.), teams would still come and enjoy themselves. It helps to set expectations ahead of time - "This BANG will consist mostly of standard puzzles of middling difficulty" for instance - but people will be grateful, happy, and have a good time.
In addition, it will help inspire other teams to run their own BANGs. To paraphrase Frank Herbert, "The BANGs must flow!" Help be part of that.
Initial Planning
There are lots of ways to go about producing a BANG and most of these ideas should be taken as suggestions, not rules. Find your own way of planning that works for you. You will need a few things to get started, though:
- Assemble Game Control!
Get a team of about 4-6 people together that can work together to put on a BANG. Start having regular meetings. Don't have a team? No problem! Post a message to the BANG mailing list and you will find that people are more than willing to support you.
- Develop a theme!
Figure out what, if anything, you want to link your puzzles together. Use your favorite TV show or movie for inspiration. Create a unique story or use an novel idea. Be inspired by a major (or minor!) holiday.
- Location, Location, Location
You don't need to know where every puzzle is going to be located at the start. If you don't already have a specific location in mind, at least pick a Bay Area county (Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma) and narrow it to a city or geographic location (park, campus, etc.).
- When?
Have a general idea of when you want to host your BANG. A month or a season at least. You can firm it up as you get closer to that date or time. Regardless, it helps to have a deadline to work towards. Have one team member be in charge of keeping the schedule up to date and keeping people on schedule. BANGs usually take 3-6 months to produce, with possibly time off for winter/holiday months. Any longer than that, and you may be in danger of losing focus and abandoning the project.
(Oh, keep in mind that many teams have players who observe different holidays. You may want to make sure your planned date doesn't fall on Yom Kippur, for example.)
Development
Okay, you've got all the conceptualizing you need to get started. Now comes the hard park: Actual work. And usually the best way to work is to start at the end and work towards the beginning.
The Meta
A meta puzzle (AKA the meta) is not a required part of a BANG (see BANG 19), but most BANGs have them.
A meta is an (optional) final puzzle that links all the previous puzzles together. Popular ways to do this is using previous puzzles' answers, mechanisms, or parts. Sometimes, it can be as simple as handing out part of the meta each time a team solves a puzzle.
If you have a meta, you know what you have some requirements for each puzzle. For example, if the meta needs to use the third letter of every solution word to spell out "MICROWAVE", the solution to any puzzle must uniquely have a third letter that is in MICROWAVE.
Puzzles
You don't have to be a puzzle expert to write a puzzle.
A smooth-working fun puzzle is usually preferred to an elegant puzzle, though elegant puzzles are a pleasure in and of themselves.
Some BANGs have pre-game and/or post-game puzzles that don't relate to the meta. Fun, but not necessary.
Testing
Want to know how to make a good puzzle? TEST IT.
Listen to your playtesters. Later on, you'll also need:
- Puzzles
- Specific locations (and permission to use said locations if necessary)
- People to test puzzles (AKA playtesters)
- People to hand out puzzles (AKA volunteers)
(Okay, this is getting away from me. Need to edit and shorten it.)
Who can host a BANG?
While BANG etiquette dictates that teams that win a BANG should plan to host one, you don't have to win a race to organize one. Anyone is free to, and encouraged to, put on BANGs. Judging by the attendance at recent events, not too many people are going to complain about having another race in the mix
How long/difficult shoud BANG be?
At its inception, the race was intented to be a shorter, easier evening event that most teams would finish in the allotted time. Recent BANGs have started to skew longer and more difficult, with a lower than 100% finish rate. There is certainly something to be said for both sorts of races- Perhaps a How Hard Should BANG be Forum would be a good place for open discussion (if anyone has anything to say).
Where should I host BANG?
Anywhere you want. Usually they are held on a campus of some sort, or in a fun neighborhood that has lots of parks, and a pretty happening downtown area. The most difficult part of finding a location is figuring out where the finish line will be- restaurants are often reluctant to let a party of 100 take up the place without a guaranteed food order, and open community centers are often hard to find. That said, people are always able to figure something out, so just be persistent.
A few places that might make excellent BANG locations would be:
- Piedmont Avenue in Oakland
- Solano Avenue in Berkeley
- Downtown Burlingame
- Rockridge area in Oakland/Berkeley
- Feel free to add to the list
