About 20Week
20Week is a one-week, city-wide festival in New York City — June 8–14, 2026 — built around a category that doesn't yet have a name: experiences that give people new reasons to move through physical space. Escape rooms, audio walks, scavenger hunts, AR games, pop-up performances, urban theater, GPS-triggered everything. The thesis is collective proof: hundreds of creators launching or relaunching during the same week, on the same map, with equal weight given to everyone participating — demonstrating the scale of the category by doing it, not pitching it.
The name comes from the CB radio code “What's your 20?” — shorthand for where are you? Submissions for year one are open; the directory drops Jun 8.
The Big Idea
Escape rooms, geocaching, Pokémon Go, Sleep No More, audio plays on the Staten Island Ferry, and a tree-identification game called Tree Hopper all share a defining trait: they make a place come alive. They are a category. 20Week is the week we collectively prove it — and start to define this as a medium before we start thinking about each other as competitors. The festival's structure is decentralized by design: there is no main stage, no festival grounds, no gatekeeper. Every participating creator runs their own thing; 20Week is the map, the launch week, and the shared audience.
Why NYC, Why Now
Year one is NYC-only by design: the week after NYC Tech Week, the week before the first FIFA World Cup matches arrive in the city. The five boroughs are dense enough to host hundreds of geographically distinct experiences in a single week and large enough that participating creators can each draw their own crowd without cannibalizing one another. Year-one programming spans Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island, with creators ranging from established theater companies (This Is Not A Theatre Company's audio plays on the Staten Island Ferry) to independent designers running scavenger hunts, GPS games, and audio walks for the first time.
Founder availability: Andrew MacDowell is available for interviews via phone, Zoom, or in-person in NYC. Photo / video opportunities at year-one experiences are available with 48 hours notice during the festival week (Jun 8–14).