Hooray! I'm back from the con!It was really amazing and fun!
I'll describe very briefly what happened there. For many years, there was a con in the forests of St. Petersburg. I went there for two consecutive years, but the main organizers got tired and stepped back. A few people decided to continue their work but started with a smaller con for around 50-60 people to test their skills and see how things would go. I was invited just as a participant, but one of the organizers suggested I organize an event at the con. This was two weeks before the con itself.
I don’t know why, but I agreed, even though I had never organized events before, haha. I had to come up with and prepare something in a very short time. I decided to organize forest "Squid Games". Gather 20 people together and hold children's games with eliminations, just like in the show. The main prize would be a drawing from me. The organizers liked the idea. The event was a test; I also needed to see how participants would enjoy it. If everything went well, I planned to conduct forest "Squid Games" more organized and on a larger scale next year.
The first game was "dalgona", or sugar honeycombs, but instead of shapes from the show, I baked cookies with playing card symbols: spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs. At the beginning of the game, I asked participants to choose their favorite card from the deck. This was to keep them from guessing what the game would be since many had seen the show. Out of 20 participants, 13 remained.
Then came the second game. I asked players to divide themselves into 4 teams evenly, except for the last team which could have 4 participants. I put bells on all participants and played hide-and-seek with each team, where I was the host. One participant remained from each team.
In the third game, four participants had to play with cups. In one of the 22 cups was a chocolate bar. Whoever found the chocolate would get a prize: a chance to move on to the next game and eliminate two participants. The first participant found the chocolate on the first try. We were all shocked and advised the player to go play in a casino that same day, haha.
In the last game, we played a card game called "King and Beggar" for two players. By the end, a small crowd gathered to see who would win. Some were filming us on their phones, while others played the show's music to build tension. The remaining two participants were genuinely nervous, sweating and struggling to play normally.
But there was a winner! His name is SmileK, and he was player number 2. I owe him an art piece as the winner soon.
The participants and audience loved the event. They wanted more! Despite everything being done in a rush—like I drew the cards for "King and Beggar" with markers—everyone had a great time. So I’ll prepare more thoroughly for next year's games!
I also drank a lot and roasted marshmallows over the fire for the first time, visited an abandoned cabin in the woods, ran over rocks by the sea, and made new friends.
Impressions for a lifetime.
(I spent three days baking cookies for the "dalgona" games. I baked a total of 74 cookies because they kept breaking during transport and storage—they were very fragile. But I managed to bring 24 cookies to the games, hooray! Plus, I burned both my hands very badly, so I’ll need to recover. It will be tough to draw, but I’ll try.)