For Assignment 3 as our task was to people watch we chose as a group to take a visit to the bingo to learn their "rules" and observe how individuals behave here when put under scrutiny.
I will start this off by firstly stating that try as we might we did not blend into the regular bingo crowd. Through no fault of our own I may add, just simply because the majority of them had a good 50 years of "experience" on us. We will bypass this fact for now though.
We went on a Wednesday night, i'm not particularly sure but this may not be a very important night on the bingo calendar so this factor may have to be taken into account when you look at the findings. I would imagine that if we perhaps we had went on a Friday or Saturday then the atmosphere and cliental could vary. On entry to the foyer I was quite surprised by the decor as I always just assumed that it would be quite dim and dingy for sum reason. It was however very fancy and quite smartly decorated. We weren't particularly sure of what to do at this time as i didn't initially know that you had to become a member before playing. The staff however seemed used to the look of blank faces and asked if we would like to join. In this area of exploration peer help was quite necessary as although the staff were willing to help they didn't really give you any indication of what to do. After signing up and being handed a welcome pack (that didn't have any instructions on how to play the game) I found myself stranded alone at the pay desk, completely unaware of what I was going into. There were a list of games on a board telling us what we could buy however the woman on the desk was just trying, hard as she might to get me to buy the most expensive package. I eventually settled on the 80p tight fisted option.
From my initial encounter with the reception area I found the experience to be quite confusing, the staff, although helpful to an extent, were more willing to get the regular clients through before us. From this it seems as that this is quite a regular occurrence for a lot of people as the staff could easily tell the newbies from the old hands.
Before entering the main bingo hall we had to pass through an intense blast lof flashing lights coming of an array of slot machines, this room gave off a vibe similar to a casino, entirely different to the rest of the bingo hall. We entered a vast room that was around semi filled. We were not too sure were to sit as the etiquette of the place was by no means obvious from first glance. We opted for a seat nearer the back to avoid any horrendous faux pas.
The actual game of bingo itself I found not too bad and quite simple to understand, although all of us had a slight variation on what we thought was going on so this combination could have hindered some peoples taking to the rules of the game initially. I had a slight knowledge for the game from playing semi-serious versions of the game on holiday although some of the terminology used threw me a bit. There were occasions when people in the group shouted "HOUSE" when we in fact didn't have it as we tried to grasp the rules of the game unsecessfully. The people there responded quite well to this though and were quite friendly and helpful about it.
Onto the subject of analysing of the people there. I found that I had to take notes when I was there as there was so much to take in, I managed to disguise this and not be too obvious by taking them on my phone.
The general age of the people there was roughly in the late 40s to 80s category, them predominately being women, although there were quite a lot more men than I had anticipated. For men it seemed that the majority of them were there accompanying there wives rather than with other men however some were alone. There seemed to be quite a few mothers and daughters and groups of no more than 3 women together. As much as this seemed in the outside to be a fun group activity, from what I saw people preferred to do the opposite from this. From the look of it the majority of the people there were likely to be either retired and if not probably working class. There seemed to be very little communication between groups with relatively no conversation being audible unless it was to display displeasure after someone winning. I noticed that a trend seemed to have emerged with groups of people sitting near other groups and people on their own, sitting near others who were doing the same. I would have thought that this would have been quite a good place for older people to meet and chat between games but apparently this wasn't the case.
The halls appearance when looked closely enough at actually mirrored the outfits of the bingo goers. As the tones of the walles were very close to their clothing with a mixtures of creams, light browns etc. I wondered at the time if this had been done intentionally to make them feel more safe or relaxed as it did seem like quite a big contrast from the advertised Mecca Bingo company colours of bright blues, reds, greens and yellows. I noticed from the advertisements dotted around the place that they advertised lots of younger aged women than the ones that were actually there, this may be to try and get the next generation interested to guarantee future business. These advertisements were heavily aimed at women or even single women as even in the mens toilets there was a picture of a lone young woman having fun at the bingo. This could be interpreted in a number of ways, my initial reaction was that they were aiming it solely at women as no men were on the featured posters. However as they were in the mens toilet I was wondering if they were trying to advertise the fact to men that there were lots of single women that went to the bingo and that it would be the ideal place to meat a partner?
When it came to knowing how to play the game I felt that this was what made the place seem its most private and cliquy. There was no attempt to explain anything, either verbally or through wall images or table cards. I felt that I a perhaps a bit of an intruder in this sense as if you weren't in the know they you would flounder for the first half of the night. I don't know if Mecca are trying to keep the same type of customers or not as if you were not taught by someone who went to the bingo the you would be lost as we were for a while. There were some things such as handsignals to the roaming hall staff that I didn't really understand, which makes me think that this is quite a got-to-know type of place that has its regulars. The use of bingo language was quite difficult to grasp especially when having to concentrate hard on the game as well. For regulars this didn't seem to be an issue though as some were having tea at the same time, playing two cards and one woman was even reading a magazine. this probably showed our inexperience at our lack of skill.
Thats A Bingo!
This task was perhaps one of the most interesting and enjoyable that we have done, as I enjoyed being thrust into somewhere new as I gained an experience out of it. The task wasn't even conscious as the majority of the work was done on reflection.
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