Do you remember Scott Wolf's book "Where in Disneyland?" It was a photo book that turned on a very simple premise: it showed you a super-close-up picture of a tiny detail, usually of something inside an attraction, and the reader's job was to guess exactly where this was from. You could check your skill by flipping to the next page, and seeing a wide-angle shot of the same detail.
In more recent times, and with today's Internet, many folks have played much the same game on discussion forums. It still has the same appeal as ever!
Folks such as myself have tried over the years to find a way to bring that kind of game into the parks themselves. It's a hard question to answer. What is the live-experience equivalent of guessing where the small detail is?
One early iteration of a game I tried to roll out some years ago was the EyeSpy game: I provided thumbnails of a detail somewhere in the park, and asked folks to write out longhand where exactly they found it. Some variation of that has been going on for several years now, in multiple live-action games.
But it's time to try something new in the parks. The new game, Photo Frenzy, will start the same way, with thumbnails of close-ups distributed on paper, but rather than write out in pen what the location is, participants will instead be asked to *take a duplicate picture* using their own equipment (digital camera or cell phone). At the end of the game, they just show up and reveal to me all the photos they managed to take. Whoever gets the most, wins!
I'm going to roll this out on Sunday, December 14 at the Magic Kingdom. The occasion is MouseFest. If you haven't heard of it, you should go! It's the largest collection of website owners, columnists, bloggers, podcasters, authors, and "independent" Disney personalities out there. The big event is always the Saturday MegaMouseMeet (in this case, on December 13), where all the hosting sites and authors have their own tables to meet folks, say hi, and perhaps to sell goods. You should drop by and say hi to me! It's at the Beach Club this year. It's open to the public--no registration required--from 11:00-1:00.
But the Photo Frenzy--also free and open without need of reservations--takes place the next day, on Sunday December 14. The location for that one is in the Magic Kingdom. We're not going to cover the whole theme park, since the allotted time is only sixty minutes (from 2:00-3:00). It'll be restricted to just one land. We're meeting at 2:00 in the covered verandah in Adventureland, just between Aloha Isle (the place with the pineapple drinks) and the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse.
If you're in the area, please do come visit, and pick up a game packet! You need only bring something to snap digital pictures with. I'll even bring along a prize or two for the top finishers.
I hope to see you there!
