Stub
$48
- Entry from 20:00
- One mask, issued at the gate
- One prize number from Booth 03
- Site address six hours before
◆ Edition VII / The Seventh Turn
NULL CARNIVAL
The address is released to stub holders six hours before the gate. Do not travel before you are told where.
What it is
A carnival is a machine for making a place stop being itself for one night. We bring one into buildings that have already stopped being themselves — drained pools, dead malls, terminated train halls, plazas nobody crosses any more — and we run it once.
Six booths, a carousel on the floor of an empty pool, fourteen mirrors that disagree, and a prize shelf with nothing on it. Every visitor is issued a mask at the gate and asked to hand it to someone else before three in the morning. Nothing is sold inside. Nothing is filmed by us.
At midnight the building goes dark for eleven minutes. That is the only part of the night we can promise will happen exactly on time.
- 01One night per siteWe do not return. The Seventh Turn happens once, and then Natatorium 4 goes back to being a locked building.
- 02A face, on entryMasks are issued at the gate and are yours to give away. Leaving in the one you arrived in is permitted, and noted.
- 03Managed lightOurs are the only lights in the building. Levels are held low and moved slowly. No flash.
- 04Eleven dark minutes00:00 — the Null Hour. Stand where you are. Stewards carry sodium lamps and will find you.
The midway
Six booths on a ring, turning slowly all night. Take one and the hall re-lights around it.
-
Booth 01
The Face Exchange
Hand in a face, receive a face. The transaction is not reversible and is not recorded. Two hundred and forty blanks are in rotation; by 02:00 none of them are where they started.
◆ Pool deck, north -
Booth 02
Hall of Disagreeing Mirrors
Fourteen mirrors, no two of which return the same person. The fifteenth is not a mirror and is the only way out of the room. Capacity six.
◆ Changing block, east -
Booth 03
Always A Winner
A prize booth with an empty shelf. Every visitor wins. The prize is issued as a six-digit number that you are asked to remember and never write down.
◆ Spectator stand, row C -
Booth 04
The Listening Range
Ten lanes. The targets are frequencies rather than ducks. Hit one and the key of the whole building moves with it — everyone hears what you did, nobody knows it was you.
◆ Filtration corridor -
Booth 05
Deep End Carousel
Installed on the floor of the empty pool at minus three point eight metres. Eight horses, no music of its own, turning against the direction of the midway. It has never been wet.
◆ Main tank, deep -
Booth 06
The Oracle Stub
Feed your ticket back into the machine. It returns a different ticket. The difference between the two is the reading, and the reading is yours to interpret without help.
◆ Turnstile hall
Order of the night
Nine hours and twelve minutes. Only one item on this list is guaranteed to start on time.
- 20:00The gate opensMasks issued. Stubs scanned once and never again.
- 21:20First turnThe midway begins to rotate. It does not stop until 04:40.
- 22:45Mass exchangeEvery mask in the building changes hands inside four minutes.
- 00:00The Null HourEleven minutes of full dark. Guaranteed. Stand still.
- 00:11Return of lightSodium first, from the deep end outward. Roughly ninety seconds.
- 01:30Second turnThe ring reverses. The booths pass in the opposite order.
- 03:00Procession of the unclaimedThe prizes nobody won are carried the length of the tank and put down.
- 04:40The lights are returnedHanded back to the building. The carousel stops mid-rotation and stays there.
- 05:12EmptyThe site is closed and does not reopen.
Where it has been
Seven turns, seven buildings. None of them are still available to us.
- I2019Meridian Mall, Level 4Vacated retail deck · 1,100 admitted
- II2020—Site demolished nine days before the gate. Stubs were never reissued.
- III2021Warehouse 22, TuasCold store, decommissioned · 900 admitted
- IV2022The Old Terminus HallDisused concourse · 1,800 admitted
- V2023Civic Plaza, Deck COpen air, rained on · 2,400 admitted
- VI2025Carpark 8B, roofNine storeys up · 1,500 admitted
- VII2026Natatorium 4, Kampong BugisDrained since 2011 · 2,000 to be admitted
Entry
Two thousand stubs. Eighteen hundred are sold. Two hundred are not for sale.
Keyholder
$95
- Entry from 19:00, before the ring turns
- Site address twenty-four hours before
- The Deep End Carousel while the tank is still empty of people
- A second mask, unissued and blank
Null
$0
- Two hundred admitted, allocated by the Oracle
- Not purchasable at any price, at any point
- You are told at 18:00 on the night, and not before
- The same entry as a Stub in every other respect
Request a null stub
One request per person. The Oracle draws at 17:00 on 14 November and results go out an hour later. There is no waiting list and no appeal.
Conditions of entry
Short, and all of it enforced.
- 01
One night, one building. The carnival does not return to a site. There is no second date and no rain date; the Fifth Turn ran through a storm on an open deck and finished on schedule.
- 02
The address arrives late. Six hours before the gate for Stub holders, twenty-four for Keyholders. Travelling to a site before you are told where it is will not get you in any earlier.
- 03
Masks travel. You are issued one and asked to exchange it at least once before 03:00. Removing a mask at the gate is not permitted; inside, it is entirely up to you.
- 04
Managed light. Ours are the only lights in the building. Levels are held low and moved slowly, and there is no flash photography — a single flash is visible from the far end of the tank and undoes the room for everyone in it.
- 05
The Null Hour is real dark. At 00:00 every light goes out for eleven minutes. Stand still and wait. Stewards carry shielded sodium lamps and will reach you.
- 06
18+, flat shoes, dry tank. This is a decommissioned structure with a three point eight metre drop at the deep end, ramped and railed for the night. The pool has held no water since 2011.
Access, capacity and stewarding for the Seventh Turn are held under the site’s temporary event licence. Queries go to the ballot desk.