As I’m the last member of the Scare Directory team to experience a HVRTING event, I had to make sure that I managed to get a ticket for the latest festive version of the game that the Faceless Ventures team hosted after their Christmas Unwrapped shows. Both events were based at the Mexborough Business Centre, not too far from Doncaster.
Due to reading reviews of previous events and after seeing plenty of before and after photos of the contestants of these other HVRTING shows, I had an inkling of what would lay in store for me this time around. I was in a better position than a few of the other contestants who either, didn’t know they’d be taking part or had no idea of what was going to happen. That said with a name like HVRTING, you can take a reasonable stab at it with no prior knowledge. A couple of weeks beforehand we were given the dress code of ‘your best Christmas party outfit’ and it was great to see many of the fun and creative attires that the rest of the contestants wore.
HVRTING is ostensibly a card game, where the aim of the game is to gather four different resource cards to win. The cards are randomly called out by the Croupier and as you’d expect the majority of the cards contain different challenges for the contestants. There are also a few useful cards that allow you to do certain things such as pass on a challenge to someone else or steal a resource card from someone else. As it was Christmas themed a few new cards were added to match the occasion.
There were twelve of us in this play through and first up we were told to plank for as long as possible whilst singing ‘Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer’. Clearly the more experienced contestants took a long time before getting in to a plank whilst myself and others assumed the position accordingly. That fact and not my general level of (un)fitness led to me dropping out mid-table. I was paired with Ash, and we would work as a team during the game.
With everyone suitably paired up we had to ‘prance’ holding hands to the basement games room, where we took out seats and saw the variety of potential props that might be used during the game, from a bowl of custard and another bowl of bloody looking liquid to a large selection of raw sprouts and a container of cinnamon powder, as well as lots and lots of tape and other items.
What followed was messy, uncomfortable, not particularly painful for me, and I have a low pain threshold, but thoroughly fun and hilarious event, with a superb crowd of other very game contestants as well as the stern Croupier and her Enforcers. Maybe it’s the secret sadist in me, but I spent most of my time laughing at all the other contestants suffering through their challenges, despite any hardships I had to endure.
For my part I had to swallow a relatively small amount of cinnamon powder (one other got way more later on), got splashed with a lot of fake blood, fake snowflakes and had my hat filled with shaving foam whilst attempting to sing a Christmas carol as a duet with Ashley. I had my mouth duct taped closed, had to strip off the top half of my clothes, had a bag put over my head and started 30 burpees before opting to get spanked hard after only 10. Some had it worse than me and others had it a bit easier.
Some of the non-exhaustive highlights were the sprout challenge where contestants had to fill their mouths with raw sprouts and keep them there till further notice. ‘Last minute gift’ where one or more contestants were wrapped and taped up like a Christmas present. And of course ‘Reindeer Attack’ which in one very memorable occasion involved a lot of fake blood and glitter. One person is going to have some fabulous bowel movements for a while. Eventually one group ended up with all four resource cards and had to hilariously battle each other for there to be a single victor. By the way I’m accepting monetary donations from the winner for any ‘accidental’ help they may have received.
Last Thoughts
HVRTING clearly isn’t for everyone, but personally I had such a massive laugh during the whole event and thoroughly loved it in spite of whatever punishment I had to go through personally. There was a great sense of camaraderie, despite the competition between the different teams. Massive thanks to the Faceless Ventures team for putting on a very entertaining show. They clearly know what they are doing and outside of the scenes are a great bunch of genuinely lovely and friendly people, which goes a long way in giving myself and others a huge amount of trust in their work. Given the physical nature of some of the challenges this trust is paramount and the team always make you feel comfortable, and that you are in a very safe and sane environment. I’ll definitely be back for more HVRTING in the future.
