Map The Room : Queer Banquet
Rooms full of strangers rarely come with a map. This one does.
The parades are over, but the table's still set. Map The Room is an intimate, personalized dinner where your answers shape who you sit beside, how you’re introduced, and the visual maps, prompts, and clues created for the night.
It makes the invisible visible: the patterns, overlaps, and quiet things people may have in common before conversation even begins.
For one night, the room shows you how differently, and unexpectedly, we may connect.
Edition 1 \ 2 \ 3 \ 4
🥢A queer banquet of perspectives
Loosely inspired by the themes of Ang Lee and Andrew Ahn's versions of The Wedding Banquet, this edition explores the many ways queer people connect, find their people, show care, and move through the world. Haven't seen the film? No problem. It's a moodsetter, not required viewing.
Expect a generous Vietnamese family-style feast in a warmly lit private nook, surrounded by personalized maps, prompts, and playful clues that gradually reveal the range of perspectives in the room.
You can participate at your own comfort level, and no activity will put anyone on the spot. Come solo or with a friend.
🗺️ What makes this dinner different?
Some rooms are built for a crowd.
This one is built around who arrives.
📝 Before dinner:
Answer 12 playful and reflective questions about your curiosities, relationships, perspectives, and what makes connection meaningful to you.
🪑 At the table:
Receive personalized seating, introductions, prompts, and puzzle clues designed around the people who actually attend.
🧵 By the end:
The night leaves you with an array of possible threads to follow: shared interests, surprising overlaps, and people you may want to know better.
🫶 Is this room for you?
The city has lively rooms for dancing and quieter rooms for sharing. This one’s the warm table: a little cinematic, a little wholesome, and made for food, stories, and laughter.
You believe sharing food is a love language 🥟❤️
You're at the stage where one thoughtful conversation beats twenty hellos.
You want a real sense of everyone in the room, not just the pocket of people you land in
You like meeting new people, but don’t love “working the room”
You’re curious about patterns, overlaps, and differences... especially when you can see them
You want a room where queer experience is the default, not the exception
You enjoy playful, reflective prompts, lateral thinking, and light games (inspired by NYT Games, Wavelength, Family Feud, Chain Reaction)
🌈 A note on lens: I identify as gay and Asian, and this edition will carry both perspectives. The film inspiration, the conversation prompts, the food, will lean that way. Queer and BIPOC experiences sit at the centre of the room, while the night reveals a wider range of perspectives, expressions, and ways of connecting.
Note: Photos shown here are from a previous edition in different locations.
🕯️What the night looks like
7:00-7:45: 👋 Arrival, Meet Your Seat Partners, Make your mark
You’re guided to your table, where a personal pocket guide introduces who’s beside you. Then, add your first mark to a collective map created live by the room.
7:45: ✨ Feast begins!
Food arrives. Prepared prompts offer you ways into getting to know your table more and you discover there's more behind your seat.
9:00: 🧠 Play Intermission!
Connections in the room now become a game...
9:40-10:00: 🥂 A toast
See how the room’s different interpretations come together in one final map of the room.
To keep the ambiance intimate, event is capped at 22 guests. 6 people max per table.
💳 Cost
The full night runs about $113 per person, in two parts:
This experience is split into two parts: ticket + food.
🎨 1. Ticket: $68
Paid now to reserve your spot.
Includes: Experience and game design, facilitation, and bespoke printed materials.
and...
🍜 2. Food share: ~$45/person
Paid by e-transfer at the end of dinner.
Includes: Curated, family-style meal.
Does not include: Drinks (ordered and paid separately at the bar)
Pricing reflects this particular venue, menu, materials, and concept. Future Map The Room editions may be priced differently.
🔍 How it works
Before dinner, you’ll answer a few questions about your curiosities, perspectives, everyday habits, and ways of connecting. Some are playful; others invite a little reflection.
Your answers shape the displays, seating, puzzle clues, and introductions for the night.
Personal stories may be interpreted to surface a shared thread, but won’t be displayed or repeated in full.
To make sure everything is thoughtfully prepared, there’s a cutoff date for full customization.
📅 Key dates
Aug 4 12:00PM - Questionnaire (12 questions) sent to registered guests in the evening. (Sent to you even if you sign up after)
5 days to complete the questions.
(Estimated completion time: 15-20 minutes)Aug 9 12:00PM - Registration deadline for full participation.
Aug 13 7:000PM - We feast, play, and map the room
Late sign-ups
You’re still welcome to purchase a ticket after Aug 8 if spots remain. Late registrants can fully participate in the dinner and activities, but may not be fully included in the prepared visual artefacts.
Refunds
I understand plans change! I offer refunds with at least 4 days notice before the event (Aug 9 7:00pm). After that point, tickets are non-refundable as materials are prepared and printed in advance.
📸 About Photography and Documentation
Photography Notice
A videographer will be filming and photographing parts of the night, for documentation and for promoting future editions.
The questionnaire includes a section where you tell me your preference to be included in public-facing materials. You can also change your mind on the night. Not everyone is out everywhere, and that's accounted for here.
👋 About Me
I’m Clarence (he/him) a designer and data visualization artist whose practice is shaped by ethnography. My passion is creating events that invite people to experience the familiar in unfamiliar ways: slower, more intentional, and still playful.
Map the Room is my ongoing practice: I've run four editions for close to a hundred strangers, and I build every one from scratch: from reading answers and stories, mapping the overlaps, designing the puzzles and visual takeaways for the specific people who'll be in the room that night.