Crowdsourcing to Raise the Stakes
While brainstorming our Radiolab toy/experience, our group encountered a central problem: without raising the stakes for the audience, going through the paces of Golden Balls felt empty.
The central motivation, and suspense, behind the Golden Balls television program is money: participants will be engaged if there’s something in it for them.
With that in mind, our group felt that a Kickstarter (or some iteration of crowdfunding) could replicate the intensity that we were seeking.
Before the Radiolab’s national tour, the program would launch a Kickstarter campaign, with a catchy video. The details would be vague, but a few things would be made clear:
1. All cities, and audiences, will play against each other with the money. So donate now!
2. All money raised will go to charity, regardless of the results. So donate now!
At this point, we will imagine that Radiolab is embarking on a 10 city tour, and has successfully raised $100,000.
Now we come to the actual excercie of playing Golden Balls. Our group imagined a version of the television program, amplified to a scale of city vs. city.
The script would go as follows:
(Radiolab does a short segment on Golden Balls. Everyone in the audience understands how it works)
Ladies and gentleman! Now that we all understand the premise of Golden Balls, it’s time for you to play.
As many of you know, the course of the last few months, we’ve launched a successful kickstarter campaign to raise funds to “play” with, during our live show. All the money will go to charity — so we’re not taking it for ourselves — but there is something at stake: your city.
Before we embarked on our ten city tour, our Kickstarter raised $100,000. If you do that math, divided evenly, that’s $10,000 per city. However, since we’re playing Golden Balls, the rules are a bit different.
In this Radiolab edition of Golden Balls, you — as a city — are playing against the remaining cities in our tour. Together, as an audience, you have the choice to split (or keep) the money allotted to you, or steal from the larger pot. Stealing “steal” the money belonging to, say, your neighbors in Boston.
At the start of each show, we will divide the pot evenly, and the city we are in will “play” with the result of the equation. Because the pot sits at $100,000 now, you play with $10,000.
Under your seats, you will find two stickers. One says split, and one that says steal. Because you are playing as a city, when the time comes, you will place your individual choice on the back of the person sitting in front of you. If you’re sitting in the front row, you’ll put the sticker on your chest.
Together, you will vote, and then pass your remaining stickers to the left and into one of our collection boxes. From there, our trusty RadioLab intern will count your votes and your choice as a city — split or steal — will be revealed.
Now I’m pleased to introduce John Doe, from the Food Bank of New York. Tonight, whatever you split or steal — or lose, will go to the Food Bank.
These stakes are real. Like Golden Balls, if you’re feeling generous, you can split the pot. It’s very simple, if you split, the Food Bank of New York walks away — tonight — with a check for $10,000. John, what would that do for you?
“A donation of $10,000 would put food on the table for roughly 100 families of four, for a week. It would be such an excellent contribution!”
Now, of course you have the option to steal. If you steal, New York takes an additional 15% of the total pot — at this point and time that totals $23,500. John?
“A donation of that size would feed 250 impoverished families in New York. Of Four. That sum of money would be so incredible for our organization — I can barely put it into words! ”
So it’s very simple, you split, $10,000 — you steal $23,500.
However, in the spirit of Golden Balls, there’s just one catch: you can’t just get away will stealing! In this theater sits 1,000 audience members. In order to steal, the amount of “steal” stickers played must fall within the range of 100-200 votes. One sticker over, New York, and John get nothing.
So take a minute to discuss and when the music starts, you will have 30 seconds to place the sticker on the person in front of you — a decision that will stare back at you until the results are in.
Towards the end of the show the results will be revealed!
In short, our toy/exercise aims to do three things:
1. Create a competitive atmosphere between cities, in turn replicating the intense atmosphere that the original Golden Balls does so well
2. Have audience members “live” with their decisions throughout the show.
3. Create a dialoge that lasts outside of a single RadioLab show. Example: “New York stole?! Of course they did, those greedy bastards!”
Our toy/exercise is very malleable:
1. Representatives from the next city (the one that will be “stolen” from) could come to the show to implore the audience to split. “Boston needs it so much more! etc. etc. etc.)
2. Instead of stealing from the pot, cities could steal from each other (if New York were to split, and Boston steal, Boston would take New York’s money)
Miles Kohrman, Mike Susol, and Paul Cheng
kaledo-art
romaincrisis
vaporwave
jacobvanloon
turnnoffyourmind
germansingergirl