How does #thechairgame work?

John V Willshire on April 21, 2016

We’ve had a good sign-up rate for The Chair Game tomorrow, Friday 22nd April, at the V&A Performance Festival.

We gather at 1:45pm for a 2-4pm game, after which we’ll repair to a local pub. Come along if you can, and sign-up here so we have a sense of numbers.

But how does it work many people have asked. So here’s a quick ruleset:

  1. Everyone sits in a chair, randomly distributed in the space.
  2. One player is “chair zombie” – they vacate their seat, walk to the other side of the space
  3. The chair zombie can only walk, at a steady pace
  4. They must try and sit in the empty seat.
  5. It’s everyone else’s job to stop that happening, not by blocking them, but by occupying the empty seat
  6. Which means vacating the one you’re in, so the zombie heads for that one
  7. Everyone else can move as fast as they like – e.g. they can run between seats.
  8. Once you’re up, you can’t sit back down in the same seat
  9. The round ends when the zombie sits in an empty chair
  10. Repeat, ad infinitum

What happens as a result of multiple plays, as people learn the game, is the interesting part. We’ve trialling out two specific (non-playing) roles tomorrow to help this part of the game along…

The Whatcher – the person who, at the end of every round, asks what went wrong, and what the group’s next strategy should be

Waits & Measures – The timekeeper, who tells the group how long they succeeded for, and what interesting things happened (and when)

See you there if you can make it.

(previous post on what this is all about…)

Mexico - P1090203