The meeting was organized and chaired by Alyce Taylor Cheska (1921-2012), who was Head of the Department of Women's Physical Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (then the University of Illinois) and an affiliate professor in the Department of Anthropology.

The scholars who met there formed the Cultural Anthropology of Play Reprint Society.

Participants renamed the organization "The Association for the Anthropological Study of Play" and elected B. Allan Tindall as president.

The Play & Culture journal series (1988 – 1992) replaced TASP's yearly publication of conference proceedings in 1988.

These multidisciplinary meetings have been held in North America and Europe, and draw a range of scholars from the fields of anthropology, biology, communication studies, cultural studies, dance, ecology, education, ethology, folklore, history, kinesiology, leisure studies, musicology, philosophy, psychology, recreation, sociology, and the arts.