Event Spotlight: Munzee in the Park – Katandra West

While Munzee can certainly be a solo game if you choose, there’s no denying the appeal in meeting others who share your interests. Munzee Events are perhaps the best example of this, as they allow you to meet both old and new players in a safe, friendly environment. On top of that, there are usually activities, games, and — if you’re lucky — goodie bags! That being said, planning events requires a considerable amount of effort. So, to make it easier for prospective hosts (and maybe even recurring hosts), we decided to put the spotlight on past events, Munzee-Toolkit style! We hope this series of posts will inspire you to try hosting an event if you never have before, or provide you with ideas to spice up future events if you’re an old hand at it!

Today we’re featuring the Munzee in the Park – Katandra West event, which took place on January 9, 2021 at Katandra West, Australia and was hosted by Rubik80, SpySmurf, and SammyDiddly.

Give us a brief summary about your event!

Katandra West is a small rural community just out of Shepparton who recently got a brand new mobile phone tower which finally enabled us to host an event there (we had been asked to do so in 2018). We have created an event at their Recreation Reserve to promote Munzee and its benefits to the local community.

What tips do you have when hosting an awesome event?

When we host our Munzee in the Park events we have a number of considerations that we evaluate. Because we are representing both the game of Munzee and our local council, we try to make it fun, friendly and safe. For these reasons, we try to pair new players up with experienced players to show them the basics and also to create new friendships. We select our event location based on where we can create multiple walking circuits that have minimal risks (such as road crossings, uneven tracks or snakes) and allow people to choose how far they wish to walk based on their individual fitness or time constraints. It’s a bonus if food, toilets and first aid are available for participants also. In order to continue attracting players we try to create badges that reflect the unique characteristics of the communities we visit and make a bonus badge available if they attend all events in our Munzee in the Park series. If you get new players to attend, give them some physical munzees to get them started too!

What made your event unique?

For the last four years we have volunteered to host Munzee events on behalf of our local council’s Activities in the Park Program. The program provides a range of free and low-cost activities for Greater Shepparton residents and visitors, encouraging people to be outdoors, physically active and engaging with their community. We take Munzee to some of the smaller communities for a number of reasons, including:

  1. Greater access to activities for the people in the local communities because it reduces travel times and costs.
  2. It provides a small tourism boost.
  3. It builds the local Munzee map should they wish to become regular players.
  4. It increases awareness of Munzee across our community which in turn promotes acceptance of people “photographing power poles” which might otherwise look suspicious.

This year’s events are also unique because of the Covid-19 Safety measures we have to undertake.

The major focus of our Munzee in the Park events is to introduce new players to Munzee and in order to get the word out there we do quite a lot of promotional work on Facebook, local radio, newspaper and through our council publications.

Would you like to highlight any future events you’re hosting?

Munzee in the Park – Toolamba
https://calendar.munzee.com/event1608547375/

Munzee in the Park – Kittles Reserve
https://calendar.munzee.com/event1608546156/

 

Thank you to Rubik80 for being such a great host and submitting the details for this event! We will be reaching out to other past event hosts in the future, so keep an eye on your inbox!