The Strange Games Festival 2025
Aug. 28th, 2025 08:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chrisElectromagnetic Field, a camping festival with a focus towards makers and hackers, was the highlight of my summer 2024, as previously described at length. I'm not sure how I found out about the Strange Games Festival in lateish April, but I know that when I did, I thought "that might be a bit like a cross between Electromagnetic Field and a games convention, that could be spectacular". Now crossing two things I like may not result in the best of both worlds - a notorious vegetable curry, heavy on cabbage, still gets referenced almost three decades after the fact as demonstration of this - but it's surely a good starting-point.
I am also famously not outdoors-y at all, but the fact that there was a pre-pitched glamping option made the event rather more appealing. Accordingly, I put the word around, found a couple of other friends (Weaver and David) who were interested in going, and we all went over the past long weekend. Very happily, the Strange Games Fesival is very likely to be the highlight of my summer 2025... and at least one of my friends considered it, and the thoughts it raised, to be their highlight of a longer time period still.
The festival has been running for approaching ten years. It started as an event for a group of Werewolf (aka Mafia, etc.) players to meet to play around a camp fire and camp overnight, but it has grown over time, gained its wonderful branding and moved around a little over the years as it has outgrown its roots. Crucial to its ethos is a clear statement that "We don’t tolerate any discrimination, and the Festival particularly aims to be a safe and welcoming space for members of the LGBTQIA+ and neurodivergent communities". This is a lofty and worthwhile ambition, and one that it appeared to me (from my point of privilege, so I note I'm not the best-placed to judge) to live up to its goal very successfully. If the combination of that ethos and "a camping festival themed around games" appeals, and if you can live with the realities of a camping festival, the event is very highly recommended indeed.
( And this is why... )
It's easy for me to find two big reasons to get very excited about the Strange Games Festival as a movement. One is the vibe, the other is the potential. The Strange Games Festival movement is taking off; in previous years it was a single annual event, this year it has grown to be one festival plus an additional campout which is a little smaller and without big organised events, next year will celebrate a tenth anniversary and there will probably be one festival plus two campouts, one away in Bristol. So if the movement is not rooted to the spot, how far might it go? Bushy Wood is a very happy home, but could there be an even bigger, better one somewhere else, now that discussions in terms of "as well as" rather than "instead of" are on the table?
Dreaming bigger still, what could a Strange Games Festival with not five hundred but, say, three thousand people look like? If it looks at all like Electromagnetic Field, from which I got so much, wouldn't that be a wonderful thing? (Some might dream yet bigger still, to the UK Games Expo, to Gen Con, to Glastonbury. That's an order of magnitude or two too big for even me... for now.) Maybe Strange Games Festival people might also like Electromagnetic Field; maybe Electromagnetic Field people might also like Strange Games Festival. I would feel comfortable saying that there are all sorts of cool camping festivals out there and you might like more of them than you knew about. I'm prepared to believe there could be others that I don't yet know about that I might like, in the same way.
Many, many thanks to everyone who worked with such dedication, expertise and talent to put on such a good event, whether running a game, volunteering or organising the whole show. How far you have already come, how late I am to the party, and how appealing it is to contribute in the future to something bigger and better still. If you can measure the effect that an event has by the number of smiles it raises, the Strange Games Festival scores a critical hit.
I am also famously not outdoors-y at all, but the fact that there was a pre-pitched glamping option made the event rather more appealing. Accordingly, I put the word around, found a couple of other friends (Weaver and David) who were interested in going, and we all went over the past long weekend. Very happily, the Strange Games Fesival is very likely to be the highlight of my summer 2025... and at least one of my friends considered it, and the thoughts it raised, to be their highlight of a longer time period still.
The festival has been running for approaching ten years. It started as an event for a group of Werewolf (aka Mafia, etc.) players to meet to play around a camp fire and camp overnight, but it has grown over time, gained its wonderful branding and moved around a little over the years as it has outgrown its roots. Crucial to its ethos is a clear statement that "We don’t tolerate any discrimination, and the Festival particularly aims to be a safe and welcoming space for members of the LGBTQIA+ and neurodivergent communities". This is a lofty and worthwhile ambition, and one that it appeared to me (from my point of privilege, so I note I'm not the best-placed to judge) to live up to its goal very successfully. If the combination of that ethos and "a camping festival themed around games" appeals, and if you can live with the realities of a camping festival, the event is very highly recommended indeed.
( And this is why... )
It's easy for me to find two big reasons to get very excited about the Strange Games Festival as a movement. One is the vibe, the other is the potential. The Strange Games Festival movement is taking off; in previous years it was a single annual event, this year it has grown to be one festival plus an additional campout which is a little smaller and without big organised events, next year will celebrate a tenth anniversary and there will probably be one festival plus two campouts, one away in Bristol. So if the movement is not rooted to the spot, how far might it go? Bushy Wood is a very happy home, but could there be an even bigger, better one somewhere else, now that discussions in terms of "as well as" rather than "instead of" are on the table?
Dreaming bigger still, what could a Strange Games Festival with not five hundred but, say, three thousand people look like? If it looks at all like Electromagnetic Field, from which I got so much, wouldn't that be a wonderful thing? (Some might dream yet bigger still, to the UK Games Expo, to Gen Con, to Glastonbury. That's an order of magnitude or two too big for even me... for now.) Maybe Strange Games Festival people might also like Electromagnetic Field; maybe Electromagnetic Field people might also like Strange Games Festival. I would feel comfortable saying that there are all sorts of cool camping festivals out there and you might like more of them than you knew about. I'm prepared to believe there could be others that I don't yet know about that I might like, in the same way.
Many, many thanks to everyone who worked with such dedication, expertise and talent to put on such a good event, whether running a game, volunteering or organising the whole show. How far you have already come, how late I am to the party, and how appealing it is to contribute in the future to something bigger and better still. If you can measure the effect that an event has by the number of smiles it raises, the Strange Games Festival scores a critical hit.
