Friday, March 13, 2015

International TableTop Day is April 11th!

Board games are on the rise! According to NBC’s Nightly News, the sale of board games is up 10% from last year, totaling 1.5 billion dollars.  Monopoly is up 15%, Operation is up more than 40% , and The Game of Life is up 45%.  This is perfect news for the programming librarian, especially those who want to participate in the International TableTop Day coming up on April 11th.

Haven’t heard this event? It is a relatively new initiative by Geek and Sundry, who produce (amongst other things) the web series TableTop with geek icon, Wil Wheaton. This will be their third year, but their numbers are already impressive. Last year over 80 countries participated, holding 3,000 events.  The beauty of this event is the simplicity - they just encourage people to sit down and play board games. They have a spiffy website at http://tabletopday.com/ and even host an event calendar that people can post their events on and players can easily see what’s available in their area. (Potential outreach to nonusers of the library!) Wil Wheaton even made a video encouraging participation: 



If that didn't get you excited to join, I don't know what will... If you would like to win an International TableTop Day Game Kit, you have until March 21st to register your event and submit a 1 minute or less video about it.

In the meantime, you can tweet about this event using the hashtag #tabletopday. If you upload your pictures on Instagram and use the hashtag #GatherYourParty, it will automatically be posted on their website at www.tabletopday.com/gallery.

To get you started, here's a list of great games you can play with a large crowd:
  • Bananagrams
  • Apples to Apples
  • Wise and Otherwise
  • Catch Phrase
  • Pictionary
  • Telestrations
  • Balderdash

Happy gaming!

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