How to Host a BANG
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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. If you don't put one on, who will? 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. 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:
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.).
4. When's it gonna be?
Pick a date to host your BANG. Or at least the month; you can firm up an actual day as you get closer. 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.
When it comes time to pick a specific date, you want to avoid holidays, big events, and perhaps-not-yet-announced other puzzle hunts. Make sure your planned date doesn't fall on Yom Kippur or the Superbowl, for example. Puzzle Hunt Calendar has a cabal of secret-keeping folks who know the planned dates of many announced and unannounced events; ask them about the date you're considering.
5. Length? Night or day?
Have an idea of how long you want your BANG to last. Three hours is probably the minimum; anything longer than eight hours and you risk exhausting your audience.
Do you want to run your BANG during the day or the night? Technically, the "N" in BANG stands for "night" and the game was originally held at night. However, night games are several orders more challenging and limiting than day games (if you are a member of the Mailing List, read this post on the drawbacks of night games). These challenges can be overcome, but many teams prefer to run their games during the day. The choice is yours.
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.
1. The Meta
A meta puzzle (AKA the meta) is not a required but most BANGs have them. It links all the previous puzzles together. Popular ways to do this is using previous puzzles' answers, solving mechanisms, and/or physical parts. Test and firm up the meta first so all other puzzle will feed into a relatively stable puzzle.
2. Puzzles
You don't have to be a puzzle expert to write a puzzle. It will take a little practice to write good ones, though. A smooth-working fun puzzle is usually preferred to an elegant puzzle, though elegant puzzles are a pleasure in and of themselves. The number of puzzles usually is between 6 and 10.
3. Testing
Want to know what makes a good puzzle? Test each puzzle at each step of the way: Conception, proof-of-concept, first draft, each iteration, and then the dry-run. Dry-run is where the (hopefully) final copy is tested by a team in a practice run of the BANG.
4. Find Puzzle Installations
Get your team together and do some location scouting. Figure out where to have puzzles handed out. Safe places with access to bathrooms and/or food, protected from the elements with good places to sit is always preferable, but work with what you have. Ask businesses if you can use their building (many are happy to help) or if they can hand out puzzles. Since BANGs are on foot, walking time between puzzle sites probably should average 5-10 minutes. Get your route nailed down and then walk it yourself from start to finish.
A helpful tip: Find an ending location first. Many restaurants have a back room that you can rent out, or will let you use for free if you promise a certain number of people will actually order food. Community centers, lodges (Odd Fellows for example), churches, dance halls, etc., also may have a room to rent. Ending in a park is always an option, but many players like to sit down and talk about their experiences with food and drink.
5. Plan activities
Optional but fun step: Required physical activities to find the next puzzle installation or to actually receive the puzzle. Have teams kick a field goal, win a game of Nim, or beat another team at horseshoes. Nothing dangerous, but unique, fun, and not a puzzle.
