G'day, mate! How're you going? I see you are ready for an exciting day of drinking... coffee?... and the bloodless sport of Boxwars! Well, fill your mug and tuck a virtual treat or two into your pocket as you don your cardboard armour... Boxwars is a fast-growing
entertainment phenomenon that takes the childhood pastime of playing
with cardboard boxes to a whole new level. Participants use reclaimed
cardboard to create the full range of battle gear – armour, weapons,
monster trucks, tanks, gigantic animals, and more. Then they put on
monumental battle shows during which every creation is completely
destroyed!
Boxwars is the brainchild of
Australian friends Hoss Siegel and Ross Koger, who came up with
it nearly a decade ago over drinks. “There was a lot of drinking
involved,” Koger said in an interview. “We sort of imagined this concept
one day, and thought yeah let’s give it a go. We did it at a party and
had a great time, and thought let’s do this again!” Koger explained that with each new
boxwar party, the suits and structures became more and more elaborate
until they couldn’t fit in their back gardens any more. So they decided
to move the party to a local park on Boxing Day 2002 (how fitting), and
people who were having barbecues at the park rushed over to watch them.
And that’s when they realised that their silly games actually had huge
entertainment value. “That was the beginning of Boxwars,”
Koger said, “and we go to the same spot every year on Boxing day! The
suits, since then, have gotten more elaborate as have the crowds, and
it’s funny that something which spawned from a stupid idea at a party
has become so big.” Today, Boxwars builds complex
structures, armour, props, and sets, for each themed battle. The sport
has expanded beyond Boxing Day – it is now a part of nearly every major
festival or event in Australia and around the world. “We do props and
workshops,” Koger explained. “For Stereosonic last year, we built these
large robots with lights that hung over the crowd. This year’s Sydney
Festival we did a Mad Max theme where we shut down a city street and
drove dune buggies down it!”And for the Down on the Farm music festival
in Victoria, they did a kangaroo cull-themed battle with the warriors
donning giant ‘roo suits’ and armour, ‘driving’ their monster trucks.
Boxwars is now run by the Boxwars
Council (consisting of Hoss and Ross), and has legions of fans across
the globe. “One of our main aims is to bring cardboard back to the
consumers who discarded it in the first place without realising its true
potential,” the official website states. “Cardboard, or the street name
‘box’, we quickly discovered had brilliant properties for engineering.
The limits of scale and awesomeness were continuously pushed to greater
commanding heights with the development of our skills with this great
stuff.”
Koger further revealed every piece of
battlegear in Boxwars is handmade by the warriors themselves. He said
that there’s generally a core group of people who actually do the
Boxwars props, and a bigger group of warriors that builds with them all
the time. “There are lots of different groups that come to events in all
cities around Australia who help build,” he said. “The concept has even
spread overseas in Edinburgh and a bunch of guys in the Netherlands who
we got to meet last year (that was awesome), as well as in Russia. It’s
getting around, as it’s a concept that can work anywhere, and we’re
happy that people overseas can identify with what we’re doing here in
Melbourne and make stuff that’s pretty awesome.” Puts another meaning on the expression, "We've got them boxed in", doesn't it? Creative costumes and looks like fun.
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