Just got home from our last workshop today in Cambridge. Again, completely bowled over by the ideas, open-ness, generosity and excitement displayed by participants.

The format of all of the workshops, facilitated brilliantly by Seth Honnor, started with an explanation of the Theatre Sandbox scheme, then went quickly into an exploration of what pervasive media is, and what might make a piece of pervasive theatre.

We were joined today by Tom Melamed of Calvium: “Pervasive media is not about new technology. It is an evolving medium which uses things you are already familiar with (mobile, gps/oyster cards etc) in a new way”.

Participants were then given one minute to present an idea to the group, should they wish. Of course no-one was obliged to do this (the point was to develop case studies which would help everyone understand better how to work up their own ideas). Today we had 19 ideas thrown into the circle which explored love at first sight, lullabies, religious extremism and real-life crime, using audio, morse code, mobile and alternate realities. Took in circus, acrobatics, sculpture, hip hop and dance, set in offices, museums, agricultural factories and childhood homes.

A strange and silent dance of voting for ideas then took place and six ideas went forward for group work. In an hour-long development session, the groups developed presentations which covered the idea; how the audience were involved; whether it really needed pervasive technologies to realise it and what success would look like.

All six groups then presented back and took general comments, questions, encouragement and critique from the circle.

We have a few days of evaluation form data entry to do before we can publish more detailed feedback, but overall the format did its job perfectly, taking over 275 people in 5 workshops through understanding the opportunities and how to relate them to what they wanted achieve.

Today’s comments from the circle on how they were feeling included: cool, thank you, speechless, so many ideas, thirsty, tired, confused, it is possible, £10,000(!), nice, helpful, thoughtful, interesting, champion, need to download, grateful, challenged, great ideas, lots to consider, really friendly people.

Thanks Katie and Seth for doing such a fab job on an unrelenting schedule. Now rest.