In February 2008, the first unconventional guide called WHAIWHAI was released for the city of Venice. This jumbled guidebook, combined with codes and text messages, introduced a new way to sightsee – by discovering a city’s secrets one by one. As you know, there are now four WHAIWHAI guidebooks about four beautiful Italian cities. After having received a prize from the President of Italy for best innovation in the tourist industry, we recently joined the RCS Media Group and the Marsilio publishing company. So today we are endowed with a widespread distribution network, a new graphic format and growing opportunities to develop.

For these reasons, we’ve decided to celebrate, and we’re going to do it in style. We’re planning a special simultaneous event in the three WHAIWHAI cities: on November 20th, we will officially re-release the entire collection in three bookstores. Then, as has become a tradition of ours at such events, we will kick off a challenge for teams in the streets and squares of all three WHAIWHAI cities. As usual, all you need to do is procure a guidebook (which you can buy, hot off the press, directly at the bookstore), form a team and bring your mobile telephone, which you will use to interact with the system that will handle this challenge. The experience will last about an hour and a half, leading the teams on different itineraries. The first team to complete their treasure hunt will receive a prize.

Here are the locations and times for the event. Choose where you want to play – we look forward to seeing you there.

VENICE: libreria Mondadori, San Marco 1345, 5:00pm

Meet the author of the stories: Alberto Toso Fei will be there

ROME: libreria Voltapagina, Via Piave 18, 6:30pm

VERONA: libreria Gheduzzi, Corso Sant’Anastasia 7, 6:30pm

This is one of the events in “Veneto - Spettacoli di Mistero”, the Veneto region’s mystery festival.

Meet the author of the stories: Francesco Mazzai will be there

What is it, you ask after us? So, these numbers and these little squares are original WHAIWHAI tools!

No, it’s not a game to play in your dreams. It’s a WHAIWHAI event that’s part of Onirica09, a festival “that dreams of raising awareness about the need to be environmentally conscious, through a broad array of art, music and entertainment.”

The WHAIWHAI event is scheduled for Saturday, September 19th from 6:00pm to 8:00pm. As usual, all you need to do to participate is come to the site of the festival (Palazzo della Ragione) with an Amor Verona guidebook and your mobile phone. See our Facebook fan page for more details; you can sign up and tell us you’ll be there. Naturally, we hope to see you there!

Yesterday, a group of Dr.Scholl’s sales associates played WHAIWHAI in Stresa, a little town “out of another era”, placidly set on the banks of Lake Maggiore. 60 people, divided into 9 teams, searched for the secret reason why the founding father of comfortable footwear was stopped precisely in Stresa in September 1929, when he was aboard a train headed for Venice that broke down. Obviously we made up that story, but Dr. Scholl’s real life gave us lots of ideas to draw on. He was enterprising man and an avid traveler who lived very intensely during that time, frequently journeying through Europe.

The game lasted about three hours and ended, after a boat ride, on Isola Bella, an eighteenth century Eden that rests in the middle of the lake. There, the teams solved the final enigma to discover the secret of Saluti da Stresa. For the rankings, we had to account for the fact that the itineraries were shortened; the speedy Carriage8 team was awarded a special honorable mention for having solved the most enigmas.

Thanks to Marina from Cross Creative and to Ambrosini Associati, who we worked with to organize the event.

We’re going to take a short break. Actually, our lines will still be open and we’ll have a few things to tell you as soon as we get back. As we pack our bags, a couple of items we’ve recently read about WHAIWHAI are going into our suitcase, because they’ll help us sleep comfortably. First, Tomas talked to Jeff Goldman of Wi-Fi Planet about what we’re doing and a nice post, which we really appreciate, came out of that interview. Second, Diario Semistupido and Giovy’s Blog both wrote about their whaiwhai experiences in Venice. Thanks a million to them, too, for the precision, enthusiasm and personal touch in their writing.