What's a Confession Box?

Question

The upcoming Norway chess tournament will implement something called a confession box. http://www.chess.com/news/grand-chess-tour-kicks-off-monday-with-norway-chess-7194

What's that really? What is that supposed to do? What's the point of it?

Answer 1

Apparently, it is supposed to make the live broadcasts more entertaining.

Up until now, the live broadcasts (e.g. on chess24), although increasingly popular, only featured a video of the players, chessboards with constantly updating moves and engine evaluations, as well as live commentary from GMs/IMs.

As far as I understood, the players will be allowed (and encouraged) to, during the games, go into the "box" and speak about their games - so the live audience and commentators (but not their opponents) can hear their thoughts and considerations about the games, what their plans are, which moves they looked into etc.. A "Big Brother" sort of thing.

Apparently, it has already been used in EnterCard Chess Qualifier, the qualification tournament for Norway Chess 2015: http://www.chess.com/news/hammer-qualifies-for-norway-chess-6703

Right after the game Hammer went to the “confession box,” a room next to the playing hall where the players were encouraged to give some thoughts about their ongoing game. Co-organizer and webmaster Tarjei J. Svensen explained: “They could do this whenever they wanted and it was a completely voluntary thing, but all the players had used the opportunity to do it, sometimes even more than once per game. The idea was suggested by Team Carlsen for TV2. It has been rather well received by the players and the viewers.”