11-13 April 2025
Somerset House (New Wing and River Terrace)
Tickets on-sale early March
Somerset House celebrates its 25th birthday in 2025 and its place as the home of cultural innovators by welcoming the UK’s leading festival of experimental games Now Play This for its eleventh year as part of the city-wide London Games Festival. Returning to Somerset House with a special game making-focused edition during Easter school holidays, this year’s theme Folk Games: the stories we play together explores community and identity through creativity and play, showcasing Somerset House’s commitment to investing in creative potential through a programme of artistic and social innovation.
Celebrating the different gaming communities who contribute to Now Play This, the three-day festival incorporates workshops, talks, participatory performances, site-specific interventions and online content to foster a spirit of belonging and connection. Through play and co-creation, festival participants investigate the ever-evolving ethos of folk games, which are continually shared and reimagined through generations.
Festival Highlights include an interactive dance performance for all ages, make-your-own-game workshops, and award-winning game makers taking players on a trail to play around Somerset House:
- Playful participatory performances for families include ARCADE (Tim Casson), a set of dance games connecting people of all ages through spontaneous choreography to a fun and bouncy electronic soundtrack
- Game Design Workshops allows participants the chance to make their own games to share with others, visitors will have the opportunity to explore a variety of formats and tools with workshops such as Making it up as we go along (Niall Moody), a turn-based game design proposal consisting of five rules, all of which are written by the game’s players
- Collaborative playful session The Strand Avian Society (Arlo Howard, Mel Frances, Chloe Mashiter, Viviane Schwarz, Niall Moody) leads players through the heart of London. Part street game, part architectural mystery, the game takes a closer look at the patchwork landscape of The Strand. Visitors can play by themselves or join one of the guided sessions.
- A special Academy and Development Community Day, as part of London Games Festival on Friday 11 April, features a live stream of talks and roundtables from games industry specialists, researchers and scholars followed by a social networking event with a show & tell segment and musical performances
- For those joining online, Now Play This partners with curators, streamers and academics to expand the festival worldwide. Among others, Now Play This will collaborate with Argentina’s Press Over Podcast with a special episode so that its Spanish speaking subscribers can also be part of this exciting exchange
Notes to Editors
Dates: 11-13 April 2025
Tickets: On-sale early March
Website: Now Play This 2025 | Somerset House
Link to images: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/n2wfvfu50ix04dnjwjtuw/AG_dGcIlsqD8GNRHrjlDwng?rlkey=grep0qjyqtld5622dfw7u5i2z&st=oidpim8e&dl=0
Press enquiries, please contact: press@somersethouse.org.uk (+44) (0)2078454624
Address: Somerset House, Strand, London, WC2R 1LA
Transport: Underground: Temple, Embankment / Rail: Charing Cross, Waterloo, Blackfriars
Website: https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/
Somerset House Facebook: www.facebook.com/SomersetHouse
Somerset House Twitter (X): @SomersetHouse
Somerset House Instagram: @SomersetHouse
Somerset House TikTok: @SomersetHouse
Now Play This Website: https://nowplaythis.net/
Now Play This Twitter (X): @nowplaythese
Now Play This Instagram: @nowplaythis
About Somerset House
Step Inside, Think Outside
As the home of cultural innovators, Somerset House is a site of origination, with a cultural programme offering alternative perspectives on the biggest issues of our time. In 2025, Somerset House celebrates its 25th birthday, marking its extraordinary transformation to one of London’s best loved cultural spaces and home to one of the largest creative communities in the UK. To mark this milestone, there will be a special year of artistic innovation featuring genre-defying exhibitions, new commissions and events bringing audiences closer to the range of cross-disciplinary work from our unrivalled resident creative community, cementing Somerset House as a leading international arts destination.
From our historic site in the heart of London, we work globally across art, creativity, business, and non-profit, nurturing new talent, methods and technologies. Our resident community of creative enterprises, arts organisations, artists and makers, makes us a centre of ideas, with most of our programme home-grown. We sit at the meeting point of artistic and social innovation, bringing worlds and minds together to create surprising and often magical results. Our spirit of constant curiosity and counter perspective is integral to our history and key to our future.
Drawing from Somerset House’s unique resident community, the digital platform will showcase a rolling programme of exclusive commissions, documentaries, films, podcasts, talks, interactive works and editorial content. Channel’s content has been created with accessibility in mind and will provide alternative ways of presenting information such as subtitles and transcripts.
https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/
About Now Play This
Now Play This is a festival of experimental game design running at Somerset House in London each Spring, showcasing interactive and playful work as part of the London Games Festival. With making at the heart of all programming, Now Play This champions innovative game-making in all its forms.
https://nowplaythis.net