Calgary Creators: Make Friends, Be Creative, Build cool sh*t!
March 2nd (10am-6pm) | March 3rd (10am-7pm)
Last Date to Register: Feb 28th
Central Library, 800 3 St SE, Calgary, AB T2G 2E7
In this 2 day event, creators from writers, to artists, to musicians, to voice actors shall band together to form teams of up to five humans to create local interactive storytelling experiences for the townsfolk of Calgary. You’ll walk away from this event with an experience that makes you revenue, and potentially one of the mini ($50+) or grand ($3,000) prizes!
Ah, What’s a Create-a-thon?
Tech people have hackathon, gamers have game jam, create-a-thons are for all the creative souls in the arts and culture community! Across a 2 day event you’ll build experiences that are activated when the user is standing in the right location, using their smartphone. These experiences are like if Pokémon Go and stories had a baby. Did we mention you don’t need to know anything about tech?
NO, you don’t need to have ever made one before, and we have the resources to get you started!
YES, we especially want writers, musicians, voice actors, and visual artists in this room!
Our aim? To gather together, meet some new friends, create some cool sh*t, provide some workshops, and have some fun with other creative people.
Who Can Attend?
This two-day creation and collaboration event is for everyone, from first-timers to professionals!
The event is designed so you can learn something new – new ways to apply your skills, new ways to collaborate, and new ways to make money as a creator.
Where do you fit into this mix?
- Writers/Storytellers/Playwrights/Game designers: You create the story and write the script, whether it be for real-life choose your adventures, outdoor escape rooms, or a walking tour. Don’t worry we have tips, tricks and prompts to help you get excited and started.
- Actors/Voice Actors: Perform those scripts, narrate those prose, film those scenes. Because the stories you’ll make are most immersive if there is associated audio or film performance.
- Artists/Illustrators: Most of these experiences require you to imagine something in the real world – a monster, a character, a time portal – artists and illustrators are the best people to bring those to life. Plus we have extra activities for the wannabe muralists and light painters in the room.
- Musician: The most immersive experiences have a musician at the helm, scoring audio and film, providing a sound track to the city as users walk through. We have a ton of professional development up our sleeves and some ways you can even leverage songs, EPs, albums or music videos you’ve already made.
Sorry, What is Story City?
Why go for a boring walk downtown when you could be running from a zombie apocalypse? You’ve heard of self-guided walking tours, but at Story City we take it to the next level.
We specialize in training and empowering creators to make interactive versions of the content they’re already making, providing ways for creators to adapt their creations into immersive digital adventures that invite people to step into the experience. We’ve seen fictional stories, puzzle adventures, branching narratives with multiple endings (multiverse for the average creator baby!), interactive podcasts and many more immersive entertainment experiences that are easily shared and sold via Story City. These types of stories are made by creators like YOU.
Whether you’re creating a real-life choose-your-adventures, outdoor escape rooms, an interactive theatre performance, or historic tales each experience only opens when you’re standing in the right place via the Story City App.
The most impactful creator teams tend to have writers, artists, musicians, and actors in the mix. Don’t know these other types of creators personally? That’s okay, come to the event and meet some!
Are you ready? Take the next step…
Okay, Give Me the Details
- City: Calgary
- Date:
- Day 1 Sat March 2nd 2024, 10am-6pm (9am kick off for individuals wanting to find teams).
- Day 2 Sun March 3rd 2024, 10am-7pm
- Location: Calgary Central Public Library, 800 3 St SE, Calgary, AB T2G 2E7
- Prize: $3,000 for best experience developed across the weekend, community partner prizes & even if you don’t win you can make revenue off what you create across the weekend!
- Cost: Free
- Food: Heck yeah! Free lunch and snacks baby!
What’s the Challenge?
Each create-a-thon challenge requires teams to incorporate into their creation specific locations and/or themes such as history, art, or local businesses.
- Become a Challenger – Join in by yourself or with your team (up to 5) and take on the sponsor’s quest! Respect the theme, be in the running for the $3k prize, and mini challenge prizes from local businesses, and have a ball of a time.
- Come Casually – Come in with as many people as you want and explore your creativity by making a story with your friends in less than 72 hours, with no location constraints. The only rule is to have fun!
An event where at the end you either win an epic cash prize or make continued revenue from your creation post-event? Sign us up!
Full Agenda – March 2024
Mon, Feb 26th // 30 Min – Virtual Kick-off (Optional)
Weds, Feb 28th // 45 Min – Virtual – Interactive creation tools 101 (Optional)
- Learn about Story City’s non-technical creator tools – seriously you don’t need to be technical AT ALL to use them.
- Q & A with our founder & CEO Emily Craven
Sat, March 2nd // 1.5 hours – Breakfast Kickoff! Let the games begin!
- When: 9:30am-11am
- Where: Central Library, 800 3 St SE, Calgary, AB T2G 2E7
- Morning Kickoff: Check in, meet the judges, find your team, learn the schedule! And of course, the challenges – WHAAATT?!
Sat, March 2nd // 7 hours – Create-a-thon Day 1
- When: 11am-6pm
- Where: Central Library, 800 3 St SE, Calgary, AB T2G 2E7
- Mini-workshops, brainstorming, starting to create story, audio, art and performances!
Sun, March 3rd // 9 hours – Create-a-thon Day 2
- When: 10am – 7pm
- Where: Central Library, 800 3 St SE, Calgary, AB T2G 2E7
- More mini-workshops, polishing and finishing our creations.
- 4:00 PM all stories submitting to the $3000 challenge due
- 6:30PM – WINNERS ANNOUNCED!
Registration Form
Thank you for your interest, registration for this event is now closed! If you’d like to hear about future events across the world, sign up for our creator newsletter here.