A Spitalfields Market games bar has added eight quick-fire challenges, a Friday tournament and a 20-pound button that tests your nerve.
LONDON, England (Shore Roar) – The grown-up version of the playground bet has arrived in Spitalfields Market, complete with scoreboards, house drinks and a button you pay 20 pounds to press. Players Social, the games bar at 1 Crispin Place, has launched The Box, a free-to-play challenge zone with eight quick tasks, according to the announcement published by The Upcoming’s food and travel desk.
What The Box actually is
The launch report from The Upcoming lists the challenges as Draw a Staff Member, Build a Bridge, House of Cards, Coaster Flip, Push the Button, Letter in a Cup, Coin Drop and Hooky. There is no time limit, and guests compete for points and prizes. Reach 10 points and you become a Players Box Champion, which earns a free hour of gaming for two people.
The venue also plans to keep records for the fastest bridge build, the tallest house of cards, the most coasters flipped and the most hooks landed in 60 seconds. Co-owner Ben Hodges describes the new zone as “quick-fire challenges that anyone can have a go at”, in the words reported by The Upcoming. It is a modest idea, and that is its charm: nobody needs a booking, a team or a talent.
The 20-pound button
Only one challenge costs money. Push the Button is 20 pounds a go, and the task is to stop a timer at exactly 10.00 seconds. Succeed and you win two house drinks, while stopping on 9.99 or 10.01 earns two shots instead. Share an attempt on Instagram and tag the bar, and you earn a free go.
It is worth doing the sums, because the sums are the joke. The same announcement says guests who play shuffleboard or interactive darts before 6pm, Sunday to Friday, can get a pint or a glass of house wine for 2 pounds. By that measure one attempt at the button costs the same as ten of those pints. I do not know the odds of landing on 10.00 exactly, and the bar has not published any, so treat it as a tax on confidence rather than an investment.
Fridays, prizes and the air fryer
The more sociable half of the package is the Box Tournament, held every Friday from 6pm to 8pm. Eight players compete over four rounds, and the prizes change weekly, from Players Social merchandise to household items such as an air fryer or a robot vacuum. There is something very London about a night out in which the grand prize might help you cook chips at home.
The bar has also set out a run of standing offers: 6-pound cocktails all day on Mondays, a 12-pound weekday Players Happy Meal until 4pm that bundles a burger, 30 minutes on any game and a toy, and weekend All Day Sessions at 38 pounds on Sundays and 43 pounds on Saturdays. Those sessions include games and 60 minutes of unlimited loaded fries, plus a choice of a bottle of prosecco, four beers or two cocktails.
The people behind it, and the drinks
The Upcoming describes Hodges as part of the founding team behind The Crystal Maze Live Experience. A 2017 Blooloop profile of that attraction names a Ben Hodges among the friends who helped set it up, and says the London site opened in March 2016. The profile quotes founder Tom Lionetti-Maguire saying “Ultimately this thing is fun; come and play it with your mates.” It is as good a mission statement for a games bar as any.
Co-owner Alex Lewis used the launch to promote the bar’s new drinks menu. The announcement says the bar distils its own spirits in flavours including cherry, blueberry and mango-and-chilli, along with a seasonal Panettone Vodka, and lists a Cherry Margarita, a Mango and Ginger Fiery Collins and a non-alcoholic Elderflower Sunrise. First Table’s listing for the venue adds that it offers interactive darts, shuffleboard, foosball and a traditional pub game called Hookey, indoors and on a covered, heated terrace.
A cheaper kind of night out
The timing is interesting. This week ianVisits reported on a survey about Londoners’ evenings, which found that eight in ten respondents say the cost of going out has worsened over the past decade, with just over half saying food and drink costs put them off. The same piece reports that over half say they are too tired to stay out late. A bar that offers entertainment with the ticket price baked in, and a free zone to boot, is at least responding to the right complaint.
Whether The Box is a clever answer or an expensive distraction depends on how you treat the button. Spend nothing, play seven challenges and you have had a free hour of competitive nonsense in the middle of a market. Spend 20 pounds and you have bought a lesson in humility. Either way, the most honest advice is the oldest: set your limit before the timer starts.
For readers who like their London with a punchline
If a games bar is not your idea of East End culture, the comedy side of the city has its own archive. The London Prat has pieces on English humor news, a guide to how to spot a joke in the news, and a hub for a London humor website that is not afraid of a pun. You can read more of my Shoreditch culture reporting at The London Prat, and the sister title Bohiney Magazine covers the American end of the joke economy. The home page at The London Prat is the place to start.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/