“…like Russell Davies’ Interesting crashed head-first into a crowd of games-heads.”
- James Wallis

Playful is a one-day event all about games and play – in all their manifestations, throughout the contemporary media landscape. It’s a conference for architects, artists, designers, developers, geeks, gurus, gamers, tinkerers, thinkerers, bloggers, joggers, and philosophers. We look at what PLAY means both creatively and culturally, and put speakers on the stage who offer different perspectives on where we are currently, where we’ve been, and where we’re going. We want people walking away talking about the nature of games…what they mean to different people inside, on the periphery, outside or miles away from the industry.

As Will Wright said in his Long Now talk with Eno:

“We have this ability as humans to build these fairly elaborate models in our imaginations, and the process of play is the process of pushing against reality, building a model, refining a model by looking at the results of looking at interacting with things.“

Previously known as ‘Sense Of Play’, Playful has been a part of the London Games Festival since 2005 and in 2008 visited not just the conventional console and PC game, but the myriad of interactive and play-based entertainment experiences which are increasingly becoming part of online, film, television, theatre, installation and performance arts. The event looks for the interesting and the valuable from a range of areas outside the traditional creative industries including built environment, architects, authors, scientists, as well as the core networked and creative sectors we work with.

Be among the first to know about Playful ‘09 news by keeping up with us on the Playful Blog. Buy tickets here for Playful ‘09, Friday 30th October, Conway Hall, London.

“Whether you were tech-savvy or not, it was an inspiring day.”
- Michelle Bower, Bowerbird Illustrations

“Playful ‘08 was a gas: there were many fantastic talks. Lots of hardware hacking, lots of technology stuff, lots of game theory and ideas, and some completely out of the blue truly awesome, tears-in-eyes stuff.”
- James Wallis, Spaaace