Together with the Youth Committee Leonberg I realized an event in the IMAX cinema Leonberg consisting of a film and an interactive exhibition to educate and mobilize young voters.
How can we motivate young people to vote in the 2024 local & European elections?
On June 7th 2024 the people of Leonberg had two major elections: The European election and the local elections. Special about these elections is the fact that people from the age of 16 are eligible to vote. The Youth Committee Leonberg wanted to motivate as many young eligible voters to cast their vote. They decided to organize an the event “DEINE WAHL” (Your Choice).
Inform, Educate & Motivate.
The goal of the event was to make all young and first time voters in Leonberg familiar with the european and local elections happening in Leonberg. We put a focus on the local elections as they are more complex but at the same time not sufficiently covered in schools.
The students should get an overview of what elections they can participate in, understand the technicalities of the voting process on election day, comprehend how local politics affect their daily lives and why it is important to make use of their right to vote..
Inviting 600 Students to the World’s Largest IMAX.
For the event we invited 600 students – aged 16 or older – from schools in Leonberg to come to the IMAX cinema in Leonberg. In order to make the experience engaging for every student, we split up the students into smaller groups and assigned them a dedicated slot throughout the day.
Event: Film & Interactive Exhibition.
The event took place in the IMAX cinema Leonberg – making use of the IMAX screen itself and the foyer of the cinema. The event consisted of two major parts: A custom produced film to educate on the local and european elections and a subsequent interactive exhibition to let the students consolidate their learnings from the film in a practical context.
[1] Film
[2] Interactive Exhibition
[3] Simulation Game
[1] Producing a Film for the World’s largest Screen.
For each group the event started with a 10 minute film shown on the world’s largest IMAX screen. We produced the film together with the production company 5ter Stock. To make it engaging we tried to convey the information in an entertaining way and selected two young people to moderate the film. The film explains the election process in simple terms, demonstrates the importance of local politics and how they affect the lives of the young people in Leonberg and finally calls for the young people to cast their vote.
I was responsible for designing the films graphics and conceptualizing the animated explanation sequences, which included extensive research on the technicalities of the voting process.
See the final result on YouTube.
[2] Creating an Interactive Exhibition.
After the film each group was guided into the foyer of the IMAX cinema, where we prepared an interactive exhibition. The exhibition was made up of four stations each asking the participants to give their opinion on different topics and statements related to the local and european elections. The goal was to invite the participants to reflect on their own experiences and points of contact with european and local politics.
The stations were designed as a simple wooden walls placed in the middle of the room. Each station had a different mechanic to answer the questions: Placing stickers, spinning a yarn or writing on sticky tape. One side of the wall was related to local politics in Leonberg whereas the other side was concerned with european politics.
A fourth station consisted of a voting booth where we the participants could see the actual voting ballets and even practice how to validly fill out the largest and complex ballot.
I was responsible for conceptualizing and designing the walls and building them together with the team.
[3] Developing a simulation game to help understand the work of the City Council.
A special part of the exhibition was the simulation game where the participants took on the role of the city council Leonberg and had to plan the budget for the city of Leonberg. Their task was to distribute the municipalities budget of 100 Mio. € among nine pots that represented the council's areas of responsibility. The participants where asked to do this as a group, encouraging them to start a discussion. The goal of this simulation game was to make the responsibilities of the city council more tangible using the example of the budget and also creating awareness for the financial requirements of the different areas of responsibility of a municipality.
[1]
Distribute Money
The students discuss the distribution of the budget across the areas of responsibility.
The participants place balls (each representing 2 Mio €) in containers, scales measure the weight and calculate the amount of money spent on the area.
[2]
Start Simulation
If the group agrees, the distribution is logged in.
The participants press a button that starts the simulation based on the current distribution.
[3]
Evaluate Effects
The effect of the distribution on Leonberg is simulated.
Depending on the funding level of the areas, different actions are triggered and displayed on a screen and the map. e.g.: “Fire brigade and civil protection” pot is underfunded → action: “New fire engine cannot be purchased” is displayed on the screen → fire station building on the map lights up red.
[4]
Redistribute Money
The group has to discuss which topics are most important and redistribute the balls up to 5 times based on this. Then the result is finally logged in.
Based on the final distribution, the thematic focuses of the group are evaluated.
I was part of smaller task force that was responsible for the concept, design, development and construction of the simulation game tables. In total we built three identical tables to have enough capacity for the participants to play in smaller more engaging groups.
Everything to take away, please!
After the event we handed every participant a branded tote bag containing a flyer with the most important information and a check-list for what to keep in mind on election day.
I supported the team in putting together the information for the flyer and was responsible for the design and layout of the flyer as well as the tote bag.
