3C - Observe & Record

 Primary Observation


For this part of the assignment we were asked to visit somewhere we had never been before, either a bingo hall, a casino or a football match to observe people and to see how we felt being in an unknown place.


I decided to go to a bingo hall as this would be a totally new experience to me. Before I went I wasn’t to sure what to expect when entering the building but once I went in I actually felt a bit nervous because it was all new to me and I wasn’t sure where to go or what to do. At reception I asked would it be possible to enter the hall to observe people playing the game which actually doing so myself, the guy behind the counter was very helpful and informed me that you had to become a member before you were allowed into the hall. Once I became a member I made my way into the bingo hall and worked my way upstairs to the second floor as I thought it would be a better place to observe everything that goes on.


The place itself was a lot more different than I thought it would look like, it was much more glamorous especially with all the slot machines etc. They also offered free tea or coffee you just needed to ask a staff member, there was also an area to get food and other drink, which would be good as I think a lot of the people in the hall would be there for most of the day.

I went with a couple of friends that also had to do this assignment, and we noticed that as soon as we walked in the older people already sitting were looking at us in a strange manor. It was as though they didn’t approve of us being there. We also found out at the end from the manager that some of them had been asking why were we there taking notes etc. The manager also said that the old people usually tend to sit in the same seats each time they come so that they have the same number on the cash line boards each time.


Whilst observing you can feel the intenseness and the competitiveness in the place and you can see how serious the people take the game. There is complete silence in the hall until someone calls ’house’ then there is a bit of talk until the game starts again, then its silence again. When ’house’ is called, the staff run about the hall to find the person and then calls out there numbers to see if they have won.

Membership card

When I was looking out over the balcony on the second floor I noticed that there were a number of people covering up there books with the numbers. I thought this was very strange because its note a game you can cheat in to win, but then I figured that it was probably so people couldn’t see how far they were to wining.




After a few minutes in the hall a member of staff came up to use with out member cards and a member pack, which contained a free session for you and a friend in it and a voucher to use on there online bingo. Then about 5 minutes after another member of staff was handing out £5 special books for Sundays to everyone in the hall. After the main game had finished there was the chance to play cash line which was an automated board built into the tables, they had a special offer on it which was two for one. These were all the offers/strategies I seen to entice people to play and spend more.


As we thought it would be best to only observe and not play the game itself, a couple of the girls I was with decided to play the cash line game. I just sat beside them and watched, it was very exciting especially when the boards started to get filled up the intensity started to build up so that know one else called it before you had all your number. I could understand how it could become addictive and I didn’t even play.

Cash line Board 

When looking around the hall I noticed that people either sat by themselves or it was a large group of people together. But even those in a group they only sat together but never actually interacted with each other. All of those that were there by themselves seemed to sit away from the large groups of people and really kept themselves to themselves and didn’t bother talking or sitting near anyone else.