You look a little confused. They say a little of what ails you something something. Hair of the dog. That sort of thing – inoculations. We like to quadruple your dose, which is why we’ve produced this list of Questions we are Asked Frequently.

Who? Where? Why? How?

At the risk of sounding serious for a moment, and so you don’t think we’re just a couple of ditzes high on goofballs all the time (mostly it’s coffee and this chocolate we found under the sofa), we want to explain a little about how, or at least why, Chaos Thaoghaire came about.

We wouldn’t pretend to reinvent the Seanachai, but we like to think we put a new spin on the tradition of oral storytelling, and provide a place where story can be about story for its own sake. We have a mixture of people who tell stories for a living and people who don’t because the gift of story doesn’t stop at the arts. We archive the stories on our website, too, because we like to collect things.

Since not everyone gets excited at the prospect of speaking in public, the team games get all sorts of people involved, encourage everyone to play with language and story in their own way. If you’ve come as part of the gaming crowd, you’ll hear stories from other people, and you’ll be making your own story to take away with you. And maybe someday we’ll do a really solipsistic meta-Chaos, where our storytellers will tell stories of haps and mishaps that happened at previous Chaos Thaoghaire events. Or earlier in the night. Or five minutes ago. Until we run out of past, like what happened in fashion and music.

Yes, we’d like you to be quiet and listen while the storytellers are speaking. But during the games, we want you to swear and curse and make frivolous bets and take stupid chances and draw pictures that would worry a police psychologist and cry and scream and shout and wail when you see that your rivals are kicking your ass. Because why? Ask any artist about the creative process, and he or she will describe just that, just maybe with more crying. Besides, we believe wholeheartedly in the importance of the earnest pursuit of ludicrous things.

Note: We’re not really sure what ‘goofballs’ are, either. But we do eat a lot of sweets, so if there’s sugar in them, probably we would want some.

Wait a minute, am I going to be put on the spot?

You know those dreams you have where you turn up at school with no pants on, only to find that some total dreamboat is handing out the most important exam of your life, for which you totally forgot to study, and then your teeth all fall out? You’re having one of those right now.

In other words, no. Storytellers are chosen in advance. The only time you might have to speak in front of the rest of the crowd is if you are caught cheating and your punishment demands it, or if you’re chosen as your team’s spokesperson.

But if you’re interested in telling a story, keep talking – we’re interested, too!

And the games. Will I get hurt? Do I need to supply my own helmet?

Quiz nights tend to reward knowledge of things about which we are mostly clueless, and we end up surreptitiously Googling the answers under the table using someone else’s iPhone. That’s no fun for anyone, especially us, since we hate to be forced into cheating, which totally wasn’t our fault.

So at Chaos Thaoghaire, the only thing you’ll be able to Google is a list of medicines or herbal cures you might need to calm you down afterward. This is not to say there aren’t rules for the games, you understand. Because oh, are there ever. And you will break them at your peril: this is not a gameocracy, this is a gametatorship. Don’t you dare forget that, Kiddo.

Theme? What theme?

When we say ‘theme’, it’s just a guide. Storytellers can be as loose and free as they like with it – pick a favourite personal yarn and just tweak it a little, let the audience figure out whatever oblique relationship there is to the theme. We want the best stories. This isn’t homework. Well, it sort of is, but it doesn’t count toward a final grade. Well, it does, but this isn’t school because the Department of Education says we can’t be accredited unless we have a curriculum, and we think being prescriptive is a little bit stupid, and the Department of Education doesn’t like being called stupid, not even a little bit.

When the participants/audience enter, they will be asked to vote on whether they agree with the statement. As with most good stories that really say something, the storytellers will be swaying the audience – whether or not intentionally – in one direction or another. At the end of the night, everyone will vote again, and we’ll see if any minds were changed. Kind of like in a debate, only it’s not a debate. It’s just, you know, a thing.

Is this a debate, then? Should I wear my lucky pants?

No, and yes.

It’s not a debate. The theme statements are just for fun, and just to give the event a bit of focus. A good story makes you think about stuff. A good story can make you think about more than one thing, and asking people to tell and listen to stories and then think about them in relation to something else just seems to add an extra dimension. Besides, we like the idea. We hope you do, too.

If enough people wear lucky pants, we might do a fashion parade, like they do at the Horse Show or the races. Maybe we can vote on whose pants look the luckiest.

Will you get into our van and help us find our lost puppy?

It depends what kind of candy you have and whether we can reach it without climbing all the way in.