You can't fail to have noticed that this weekend is the London 2012 Open Weekend. Well, OK, you could easily have not have noticed, it's not been overly advertised, not unless you discovered the 8-page pullout in Wednesday's Metro. Bad news - just because it's called the London 2012 Open Weekend doesn't necessarily mean that anything Olympic will be open. Instead this is an umbrella title covering lots of different events all across the UK, celebrating the fact that it's (nigh exactly) three years to London's Opening Ceremony. There are 800 events altogether, including "a range of activities from culture, sport, sustainability and learning." Could be good.
So, what's on?
Now that's a good question, because London 2012 want you to try to find the answer on their website, and that isn't going to be easy. All 800 events have been dumped into an "everything's equal" database, and it's your job to try to locate something appropriate to attend using the search function without accidentally overlooking something rather more interesting you'd rather have gone to instead. I know I moan about inadequate "What's on" event databases far too often (see also The Story of London), but the Open Weekend website is yet another example of inappropriate helplessness. Especially if you live in London.
Join me if you will on the Open Weekend events page. It's not so much an events page as a search engine, with the first 10 of the 800 events listed underneath. They're a fairly random 10 events, listed in abbreviated summary form, kicking off with Sunday's exciting-sounding "DRAGON" Carnival-theatre. And where is this Dragon to be found? No clues. There's just the event title and the first 11 words of the event description, and none of these contain the location. You have to click to discover that's it's in (click) Cardiff. Ah, OK, you won't be going to that then. The second event says it's in Bedfordshire, although you won't discover that "Open Up: ABILITY" with ON TRACK 4 GOLD is an all-inclusive talent showcase before you (click). And as for the possibly-great but ambiguous 2012 Open Day - Cultural Festival, it turns out that this is in (click) Wakefield. If you're not near Wakefield, who cares? More worryingly, if you are in Wakefield, would you have noticed?
Actually you might well have noticed, because the Open Weekend website also offers a regional breakdown and a map. Wakefield residents can choose to view only events in "Yorkshire and the Humber" (there are "only" 47), or else they can click on the map to find the two events in Wakefield (which took me three clicks and a long wait). But it's much harder if you live in London. Click the big London sign on the map and a whole forest of London-y Open Weekend events shoots up. Zoom in and you'll be able to find the events nearest you... except they may not actually be interesting, and they might not be on the day you want, and there might be something really great three miles from home and you'll never see it. Or use the regional drop-down to search for all the events in London... but there still are as many as 211 of those. Even a narrowed-down search (Sport events in London)(Sustainability events in London) tends to produce far too many events or far too few. Bet you can't be bothered to check much further.
So my gripe is this. It's perfectly possible to uncover all the interesting Open Weekend events in London on the 2012 website. But it requires a heck of a lot of clicking, and an awful lot of effort, and a surprising amount of time, and quite frankly I don't reckon that 95% of users of the site will bother. There are no pages of regional highlights written by a human being, no spoonfed summaries of extra-special events, no lists where sufficient information's accessible at the top level without clicking, nothing for the majority of internet-passive surfers. This a website which expects all its users to actively engage with search protocols, and if you don't or won't or can't then you'll miss out. It's cheaper to design things this way, obviously, because writing coherent webtext summaries costs more than bunging a few fields into a database. But it's the events themselves that'll miss out when nobody spots them and not enough people turn up.
Here are ten London Open Weekend events you might enjoy, which I've dutifully slogged through the website to find.
• Dominoes (Sun): Thousands of concrete blocks will be used to create a moving sculpture across east/southeast London, starting mid-afternoon in Mile End Park and ending at dusk in Greenwich (it'll either be amazing or a huge letdown) • Discover the Greenway (Sat): A family-friendly afternoon up on the sewer overlooking the 2012 stadium, with natural history, mural painting and an orchestra • Greenwich World Cultural Festival (Sun): A varied programme of music and dance in the grounds of Eltham Palace • Waltham Forest Mela (Sun): Immerse yourself in a whirl of diverse colour (or some other all-inclusive buzz phrase) • Tokyngton Recreation Ground Jogging Weekend (Sun): Turn up in the shadow of the Wembley arch and run around a bit (a typical example of one of the many friendly come-and-have-a-go sporting events taking place this weekend) (because 2012's about sport innit?) • Hackney Sparrows Challenge (Sat): How many baskets can be scored by one wheelchair basketball team in 2012 seconds? (haven't you always wondered?) • Dream City (Sun): Bring the kids to the Serpentine Gallery and help create a city of buildings, parks and people (real architects will be getting their hands dirty too) • Countdown (Sat): A sandy festival in Barking Town Square complete with music, art, sandcastles and beach volleyball • Children's craft event (Islington Library) (Sun): Come make an Olympic torch and dab the 2012 collage (just one example of the richness of the weekend's events for younger Londoners) • Dalston Mill (Fri, Sat, Sun): Hang on, isn't this happening anyway? It's not a special event for the Open Weekend, it's just bumping up the numbers for a bit of extra publicity (still worth going, though)
Apologies to the 200 other London events I've overlooked (but then you'd probably have overlooked them anyway)
You can't fail to have noticed that this weekend is the London 2012 Open Weekend. Well, OK, you could easily have not have noticed, it's not been overly advertised, not unless you discovered the 8-page pullout in Wednesday's Metro. Bad news - just because it's called the London 2012 Open Weekend doesn't necessarily mean that anything Olympic will be open. Instead this is an umbrella title covering lots of different events all across the UK, celebrating the fact that it's (nigh exactly) three years to London's Opening Ceremony. There are 800 events altogether, including "a range of activities from culture, sport, sustainability and learning." Could be good.
