Hype
Fairnie will go down in history as the
creator of Hype. That's 'Hype' as in the board game, not the
concept itself. The story goes way back to 1980 and an issue of fan-club
magazine Punty. The back page featured the 'Writz are now Famous Names' board
game, retracing the endless ups and downs of the doomed bands. But Fairnie found
the board game idea interesting, and he found the perfect match in Techno
lighting designer and fanclub magazine "Punty" editor Peter 'Willie'
Williams
(now best-known as chief lighting genius
for U2, and the brains behind the Zoo TV, PopMart and Vertigo live extravaganzas), a self-confessed
'mad games player' since birth.
And so began the long and winding road
towards 'Hype' - billed upon completion as 'the only board game with all the
slime and grime
of the music business' - finally hitting the shelves the best part of four
long years later. The basic premise? Players would compete by
forming a bands, playing gigs, recording demos, going on tour, getting a record
deal, appearing on TV and finally hitting the charts. The winner would be the first
to get to number one!
In the words of Willie Williams: "Bev,
Steve and I would go through the most hilarious sessions with middle-aged toy
executives in suits because the only way to see what
a game is like is to actually play it. This means going into mega-plush
board rooms, sitting down on the big leather chairs at
the big polished oak table (they really are like the ones in James
Bond films), then giving the besuited gent his hundred pound notes, and asking him what
colour he'd like to be."
After months of endless
mock-ups and fine-tuning, the final version was eventually manufactured by toy industry newcomers
Virgin Games and put on the market, the package also including a free Technos 12"
single: 'Hype' / 'Nightime Heaven'.
Fairnie told the Bristol Evening Post: "I
was lying in the bath thinking about the rock business when it occurred to me
that no one had ever made a board game based on the subject. I decided the best
ploy would be how to hype your single to the number one slot in the charts... so
you progress from forming a band, local gigs, demo tapes and so on, and try
to work your way
to Top Of The Pops and Number One. There's a touring circuit for
your band - Bristol's on it, of course - and it's an amusing way to
spend a couple of hours."
Hype
proved to be popular across the music
industry. For instance, Hype was a fixture
in the legendary Chiswsick
Reach recording studios owned by Nigel Woodward, and artists including Ray Davies, Tears For Fears
and later Manic Street Preachers would while away many an hour between takes plotting their
way around the Hype board.
However, in commercial terms the game
failed to fly off the shelves quite as envisaged and it turned
out to be the only game ever produced
by Virgin
Games. The lavish packaging had made for a hefty retail price. Furthermore, the competition
soon became stiffer with the arrival of a spookily similar
board game launched by smooth-talking Radio 1 DJ and self-proclaimed people's poet Mike
Read. The word 'plagiarism' sprang to mind, as did the verb 'to sue' and the
expression 'see you in court'.
The ensuing court case dragged on and on
and on, and sadly only came to an end many months
after Fairnie's death. The decision went Hype's way, and the final court sessions were
deeply emotional affairs for Bev who had continued fighting for
the Fairnie corner. Not wishing to rub salt into the wound, it is
interesting that Mike Read's otherwise exhaustive website biography fails to mention his ventures into the
realms of board game creation...
More about Hype in the Willie Williams
interview here
.