Thanks to Sam and Ben at Artful Spark for inviting me to be part of the Producers Unite! event last week at Rich Mix. If you’re at all interested in multifarious forms of digital play and creativity, you should think of going to future gatherings. The networking opportunities alone are worth the price of admission, with all kinds of artists, performers, programmers, technologists, curators etc making up the audience.

Top speakers on this particular night included: JiaXuan Hon talking about her fascinating experiments in dance, audience participation and tech; Matt of Blast Theory sharing some basic mantras about producing interactive crossplatform work; and Russell McLean, one of the producers of Bandersnatch, revealing the labyrinthine branching narrative system that had to be created to support Charlie Brooker’s first (Netflix-funded) foray into interactive TV drama.

My only complaint about the event was that it was too short. Once the main presentations were completed it was clear there was a lot of good discussion to be had with people in the audience, but there was a strict time limit on how long we could stay in the space. I would have been happy for the conversation to go on for longer. But I guess this just means I’ll have to go back to the next event. You should too.