Category Archives: Reports

Read up on how a particular event has gone.

Adelaide Flashmob #16

What a great night! Thanks to everyone who came along to participate in the mob. Sorry about the late notice on the changes, but it was still a great night. If you missed it, you can click through for the instructions from the event. If you came along, please comment and let us know what you thought of it! Continue reading

BitS: Kiss the Girl: Event Report

What a great way to get our first Burst Into Song event off the ground. Thanks to everyone who participated on the day as well, we couldn’t have done it without you. The core team who put in all the hard effort of rehearsals, the coordinating team who organised the choreography and training, and also everyone who showed up on the day to be a part of the ensemble.

Just brilliant!

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-Q8LXSJdMQ]

You’ll be able to find a few more videos over at our YouTube Channel

AFM#15: It Reads Better Upside Down: Event Report

Thanks to all those who made it out to AFM#15; ‘It Reads Better Upside Down’.  We were lucky enough to get great weather for this friday evening event and a rough estimate puts the numbers at around 80-100 making it our biggest flashmob to date.  If you didn’t make it out to this flashmob but are curious about the event, I suggest you check out the event instructions to find out what we did.

We will have a full event report and video up soon.  In the meantime we’d love to get your comments and feedback on how the event went.  Simply post them in the comments below.

We’d especially like to know:

  1. Any funny reactions you saw or got from passers by, employees or other non-mobbers
  2. Which mob activity you like the best and why
  3. Any activity/s you didn’t like and/or ways they could’ve been improved
  4. Any ideas for future flashmobs and events

Adelaide Flashmob #15: Event Instructions

Event Details

Date: Friday, 18 September 2009
Time: 6pm – 7pm
Location: Rundle Mall, Adelaide CBD

Instructions

For this event we will be doing 4 activities along Rundle Mall.

Mob #1 : By 6pm (1800) you should be browsing the books, dvds and magazines in Borders (next to the malls balls) upside down. Each product that you are looking at should be physically taken off the shelf and held upside down. This will be a very subtle mob which many people won’t notice. But those who do will be WTF confused. When your watch/phone strikes 6:13pm, immediately put the product you are holding back, put your hands over your ears and quickly and quietly head for the door.

Mob#2: As you exit borders form a large circle around the malls balls so that you are around 10 m from it. Look out for other mobbers and try and fill the gaps to make it more or less a complete circle. Strike up a conversation with the mobber next to you and slowly raise the noise level. As the general noise level gets louder, slowly move forward, closing the circle around the balls but don’t go closer than 4 m. Once the noise level gets high enough a countdown will start… 20,19,18,17 etc… join in and make it really loud… 5,4,3,2,1… finish the countdown at 1 (one), INSTEAD of saying 0 (zero), quickly and silently disperse in different directions.

Mob #3: Start walking west (towards king william) along the mall, keeping to the left hand side. As you pass Harris Scarfe’s, crouch down and tie (pretend to tie) your shoe, get back up and contine walking. Walk 20 m or so past the end of Harris Scarfe then cross over to the opposite side of the mall, loop around and walk past Harris Scarfe’s again with another stop and shoe tie somewhere in front of the store. Repeat 3 more times (5 in total). Try and mix up the spot where you do your shoe tie on each loop and try not to get in the way of the doors too much. After you have finished your 5th pass, casually walk off towards the Myer Centre.

Mob#4: If your birthday is in an odd month (Jan, Mar, May etc) find a spot in the mall outside the Myer Centre and stand with both hands on your head. You don’t need to be frozen, just standing in the one spot with your hands on your head. Those of you who have your birthday in an even month (Feb, April, June etc) stand around watching, move in amongst those who are standing still as though they are exhibits in an art gallery. Once you have had a good look around, approach someone who still has both hands on their head and put them into another pose by physically arranging their arms and giving them quiet instructions. Once you are happy with the new pose, walk off. Those who are now posing; again you don’t need to be frozen, just generally still and holding your pose. Count to 100 and then casually walk off. Hopefully the split will be roughly even but if not, just accomodate by either setting the pose for more than one person or skip setting someone’s pose if no one is left.

The event ends here. However, if you want to meet up with other mobbers and discuss the event, head into the City Cross food court. Scratch all over as if you have fleas as you walk around the food court to identify yourself as a mobber. Find others doing likewise and gather together and find a place to sit.

Theres quite a lot to remember here so you might want to copy the instructions into a word document and print them out for your reference.

If you can’t make it to this event then please give us a hand and invite any friends who you think might be interested so we can get the numbers to make the mob a success.

AFM#14: CIBO! CIBO! CIBO! Event Report

For this event, we did four mob activities along Rundle Mall on Saturday August 1st 2009.

We did things a bit differently by giving out the instructions before the event while usually mobbers don’t get them until they show up on the day and receive a sheet of papper with the details. It seemed to work in getting more people out as this was our biggest flashmob event so far with around 50 people.

Check out the instructions for the event including details of each activity.  Watch the video below and read the comments from event participants.  Add your own comments.

Funny Video Moments

3:20– Guy in white jumper and blonde girl in pink top arrive after Chibo Cheers has finished and stand around waiting for something to happen…

3:55– Guy in black jumper with a coke walks by with a smile on his face

4:02– Two girls in red, apparently they weren’t part of the mob and just decided to join in.  At the end they said “why did we just do that?”

4:12– Tall, thin guy with light coloured clothing standing to the left of the girl with the camera, looking around interested

4:34– Girl in denim jacket and girl in brown jacket enter from the right and look on shocked.  They make another appearance at 4:55 (behind the pole) and are left standing confused once everyone disperses

Long time mobbers would recognise that 3/4 of the mobs we did were ones we’d done in the past so we had a good feeling that they would work.  The Line was no exception.  There’s something about a long line of people that just turns heads, and when you add that they guy at the front is holding a sign saying “please line up here” but with no explanation of why, people must stare while their minds search for an explanation.

Everyone seems to be in agreement that Chibo Cheers was the best activity and the most fun to participate in.  As expected, the cheering and clapping quickly brought a crowd of onlookers.  It’s hard to say whether they were more confused by the subject of our commotion or the speed of our arrival and departure.

Our last two activities were more subtle both visually and audibly.  Some people in their own little worlds just walked on by without even noticing, those more observant stopped, realising that something wasn’t quite right.  I think Boing Boing would’ve been better if we had people look in different directions and stand not so much in a circle formation. Murmer worked pretty well, might have perhaps been better if we’d spread out a bit more.

To end the event, those who wanted to headed into City Cross for some food and a chat.  In order to identify themselves as mobbers they were instructed to put their left hand on their head and walk around until they met up with others doing likewise.  This wasn’t captured on the video but it was pretty funny and certainly confused the security guard on duty.

————————–

We love hearing about funny bystander reactions so if you can remember any or notice any good ones in the video, please put them in the comments.  Here’s some other questions we’d like to get your answers to.

  1. Which of the four activities did you think worked the best?
  2. Do you think the fact that we gave out the instructions before the event made it better or worse?
  3. Do you have any ideas for future events?
  4. Any other comments or suggestions?

AFM#13: Thumbwar Championships, Event Report

Our last flashmob event was all the way back at the end of 2008 so it was good to get back in the hot seat.  The weather looked a bit dicey for a while but turned out great for the duration of the event even though it managed to run an hour overtime.  We were a little light on numbers at the meeting place so I made a last ditch attempt to recruit some more mobbers by handing out instructions in the mall and directing them to our first activity, “Thumbwar Championships.”  I managed to get another 5 or so people which swelled by an additional 4 or 5 before the event’s end.

For this event we also had two uni students, Jay Anderson and Andro Malapira, filming for a doco project for their uni course.  The finished product is below.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3y1w_-Uttw]

(also available on youtube)

Here’s a basic rundown of the four activities from this event.  If you participated then please leave your thoughts and comments about the event in the comments below.  We should have a video coming shortly as well.

Thumbwar Championships

“Sign Up” at the malls balls meeting point and pair off for round one of the thumbwar championships. “1, 2, 3, 4, I declare a thumbwar,” and the battles begin.  At the end of the round the losers are eliminated and the winners progress to round two.  This continues until we have a Thumbwar Champion.

Boing, Boing

Mobber 1 starts bobbing up and down and saying “boing, boing, boing… etc” reasonably loudly.  Other mobbers gradually join in.  We started this behind the busking magician who’s often in the mall and he felt the need to make a number of comments as he thought we were stealing his show.

Simon Does Loop

Everybody walks a looping route from the mall and through the Myer Centre that includes… Check watch, walk towards Myer, tie shoe, go down escaltor, walk left, fake trip, go up escalator, go back out into the mall.  Repeat the loop 5 times over, keeping your head in your newspaper all the time through.

We only managed 2.5 times through the loop before a security gaurd kicked us out… apparently reading the newspaper is against their conditions of entry.

Mouse honeydripper movie

Find a seat in the City Cross food court, near the Subway and Hungry Jacks.  As mobber in mouse costume approaches shout out “Mouse!” and jump up on chairs, searching the floor.  Mouse will walk through the food court and out the door into Grenfell Street.  Once he is gone, sit back down and go about your business.

The female security guard chased down the mouse and stopped him just before he did his walk through the foodcourt.  She didn’t want to chuck him out, but ask for a photograph with him.  Unfortunately that put her right there for when we all shouted out and we were quickly asked to leave.

Adelaide Fringe Flashmob Mission

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1zccx6qg-8]

I only just (May 8th 2009) found this video when I was searching around on youtube.  I attended the event and it was great fun.  I’d been wanting to do an MP3 event in Adelaide for ages so it was great to finally have one with someone as experienced as Charlie (Improv Everywhere).  Since I wasn’t an organiser I was able to enjoy the event as simply a participant and it was awesome!

The “Adelaide Fringe Flashmob Mission” was on Saturday (March 7th).  This was an official Fringe event being put together by Improv Everywhere‘s Charlie Todd

    (USA) and the Adelaide Fringe , and was part of ‘The Playground’ series of events.  The Adelaide Flash Mob helped out with promotion and local knowledge.  From the Fringe website:

    Psst… wanna take part in a secret mission? Register to be part of Flashmob with Improv Everywhere’s Charlie Todd (USA), famous for his ‘freeze’ in New York’s Grand Central Station (check out YouTube’s FREEZE). Remember “loose lips sink ships!”

    The details were kept secret until just a few days before the event.  Those who were interested in participating needed to email the event email address to get themselves on a mailing list to receive the information when it came out.

    Ninja Raid on Adelaide 2009 Event Report

     

    Thanks to all those who came out to the event, as always it was hard work but great fun.

    For an idea of how the event went, I suggest you check out the video below then read all the great comments from participants at the end of the post.

    [youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZiGl8-4isM]

    (also available on youtubeTip: watch in High Quality )

    If You Can Read This My Cape Fell Off

    At the beginning of the raid, before we left Hindmarsh square, we did a small amount of filming some of which involved chasing a girl in a red t-shirt that said “if you can read this my cape fell off” on the back.

    That was Bec Hill and the filming we did was for her show at this years fringe, ‘If you can read this my cape fell off.’

    From the fringe guide:

    Join Bec as she searches for a loophole which may classify her as a superhero. However, when your only superpower is making awesome cheese-on-toast, do you stand much of a chance? THE show for anyone who has ever fancied themselves as a superhero… …Without the heroic or super part.

    Trailer of the Show:

    [youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aDj6Nz86AU]

    (also available on youtube)

    Photos

    Thanks to all those who uploaded photos from the event:

    • Jennifer King
    • Kara Lee Holloway
    • John Goodridge
    • SanSan Ja
    • Ben Teoh
    • Rachel Jose
    • Sean Curry
    • Rejectreality (also on flickr)

    I have added a few into the post below, you can view them all on facebook.

    No Pants 2k9 Adelaide- Event Report

    Thanks to the few who came out to the event.  Like last year the turnout was dissapointing, but also like last year we made the best of what we had and pulled off quite a successful ride.  We had some hiccups along the way with one of our cameramen missing the second train on the way down and then all of us missing the first train on the way back (you can blame that one on me guys).  I never realised how little there is in Outer Harbour… we gave passersby some excitement with our pantsless shenanigans while waiting for the next train and we did things a bit differently on the way back.

    [youtube:http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=k8JL_RE39Ko]

    (also available on youtube)

    Here are some reports from partici-no-pants:

    Ben: From a partici-no-pant’s point of view, I have to be honest and say that I initially thought we were too light on numbers, but I was so very wrong. Even with the few people we had, it was a great experience with two separate no-pants-ing events in one day (plus the fun down at Outer Harbour).

    I think the key thing to having small numbers is to approach the events differently. Improv Everywhere have the big numbers and can simply go for the shock value, with smaller numbers, you actually need to work on drawing the spectators into the story. This happened well on both trips.

    The first trip, was purely about a bunch of people not wearing pants on the train. There was one, fairly vocal teenager who was freaking out a bit about my Indiana Jones boxers, and as soon as he started talking about it, other people started chatting too. Great for reactions. Even after we had all bought our pants back from the pants-collectors, he was still talking about it to people who were boarding the train after it had all happened.

    The second trip was gold, and was a great example of how to draw other people in. We waited until the train was fairly full, and we all had our pants on. A couple of our support crew started at one end of the carriage and began asking people (both spectators and participants) to donate their pants for the homeless, under the guise of the charity ‘Pants for Peace’. The first group of people on the train reacted as you’d expect “What? You want me to take my pants off and donate them?” The girls did a great job at pleading with them. The group of people were still talking about it as they walked down the train.

    I was the first one of the participants who was approached, and after a bit of chatter with the people sitting around me, I said, “hey, why not?” and down came the pants. We even got a cheer and a clap from the first group of people.

    We had spaced ourselves fairly well through the train so as the girls made their way down, one or two people would stand and take their pants off, with everyone looking on at these brave people donating their pants for charity.

    Great work, and the group size was definitely not an issue. We made do with what we had, and it worked out brilliantly.

    Kara

     

    : To be honest, I hadn’t planned to attend this event intially, but when I contacted Nick about support roles, there was one that needed filling; the ‘pants seller’. I had help of course, but basically the job description included collecting pants as the others took them off and selling them back later “at a bargain price.”

    As Ben said, there were several pantsless activities on the day. The first I found a bit confusing, but ultimately worth the effort. We all boarded the train to Grange and the others got off at each consecutive stop before Woodville (where the pants sellers got off). Then when the train to Outer Harbor arrived 15 minutes later, each pantsless rider got on at their stop. It was so much more entertaining having the riders enter the train pantsless, especially when the other passengers are looking at the first one thinking “What the…” and then another and yet another pantsless person boards the train. We managed to pull off this plan without a problem except for losing one of the cameramen to the Grange line after he missed the Woodville stop. I unfortunately didn’t see too many of the reactions from the passengers, but I thought the whole ‘pants seller’ part worked extremely well. Nobody really expected us (pants sellers) to do anything because they were all distracted by the pantsless riders. We managed to create a huge scene with all the pantsless riders around us and I felt the responses by the flashmobbers were very good; it seemed like none of us knew one another. There was one passenger who made a huge scene about what happened; telling his friends and other passengers: “There were all these people on the train in their underwear…” “And then these ladies stand up and start selling pants…”. He was hilarious.

    The second part of the trip was simple time wasting amusement. We stood along the side of the road at Outer Harbor, waiting for a car, motorbike, cyclist, anything really. Then as they went past, the pantsless mobbers waved their pants in the style of a Mexican wave. We got a few good reactions, some people beeped, others looked away and yet others gave confused looks. Unfortunately we didn’t know at the time that the road was a dead end and that we kept waving the same vehicles twice on both sides of the road. But usually the reactions were better the second time around. Some of the mobbers even chased a few of the cars that were driving REALLY slowly.

    It was a problem that we missed the train back to the city from Outer Harbor in one sense, but we did have time to come up with the brilliant “Pants for Peace” plan (And by missed the train I mean that we stood there on the platform chatting as it pulled away from the station). As Ben said, the basic idea was that we asked passengers to donate their pants to charity. Of course, the idea is absurd, making it that much more entertaining when the mobbers gave us their pants. So we initially walked up to the front of the train, trying to seem as though we were serious about the pants for charity. None of the other mobbers were in that area, but we did get a few entertaining comments. One girl said sarcastically “I’d really prefer to keep my pants” and another guy made a huge deal about “You want my pants?” and “You want to take my pants off?”. Very amusing, but it set up for Ben who received a huge cheer and applause when he gave us his pants. I must say the mobbers were great in the way they asked us questions about it, hesitated and even offered money instead before finally giving us their pants. Some of the expressions on the faces of the passengers were hilarious, ranging from “No way I’m giving you my pants” to “I can’t believe that guy just gave them his pants.” There was one woman who gave us a little trouble. She asked us why we were still wearing pants. We answered as best we could with “we’ll throw in ours later” and “we work for the organisation” but I left her with “we’ll take that suggestion on board.” Overall, I think this plan worked much better than the other one for sheer shock/scene making quality. At the end, we sold the pants back to the mobbers after they had walked past the security at the Adelaide station.

    So overall, great work despite small group size and well done to everyone on their acting skills!

    Sambo : I must say, I had an absolute wonderful time with the guys doing this!
    when getting on the train the first time without pants, i chickened out a little, and went to the front end… but doing so, gave those occu-pants a taste of me not wearing any pants… to my surprise a guy near me, looked, and just shook his head in disapproval. still good rather…
    I really enjoyed the second ride; back to the city.
    The traveler’s reactions were gold, and were really enjoyable to watch, while removing pants in front of them…
    I loved walking through the train station in boxers… others taking photos as if, they’d never seen people in boxers before… lol
    An enjoyable day, rated highly as one of my most memorable days…

    Travis // TJ Says:

    Hahah, a great day 🙂

    Some favourite moments:
    Part 1 – City to Outer Harbour, the shock factor.

    James getting up and doing some stretches in the isle
    The big dude opposite me desperately trying to ignore me
    Climbing over all the people with bikes to get to the bin. Three times.
    A 4WD full of people stopping while I was at the train stop and just staring, I was expecting them to drop off or pick someone up, but they just left after a minute or so.
    The guy who attempted to explain what happened to everyone that got on the train after we had re-pantsed. He must have seemed drunk or something to the unsuspecting commuters.

    Part 2 – Outer harbour shennanigans
    The cars that drove veeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrryyyy sloooooooooooooooowly past the mexican wave, so we just chased them waving our arms, that sped them up 😛
    The fact that half the people drove past us twice. That was entertaining.

    Part 3 – Outer Harbour to City – Pants for Peace
    My favorite part of the whole day. After having a stroke of genius during our wait at outer harbour (it was long enough to warrant one really), the charity Pants for Peace was born.
    Kudos to the charity representatives, you did a sterling job. And the train carriage was perfectly laid out for maximum effect, a group of vocal kids at the start, generally pretty crowded, and the first to depants, Ben, facing the big open area near the doors, and those kids.
    I loved the many comments and discussions from the loud kids at the start of the train. Things like ‘What are they going to do now? They have to walk around all day without pants’ ‘You want me to take off my PANTS?’ ‘Fuck that, My pants are too expensive’
    Also entertaining was the lady opposite James and I, who refused to notice us. She had to try especially hard when James spread his legs and started scratching himself.

    The general reactions to the pantless state of several train riders was quite entertaining, you’d get those who seemed thoroughly confused, those who seemed not to notice, those who tried really really hard not to notice, those who smirked and laughed, those who refused to acknowledge the situation, and those who felt they just had to say something about it to someone… perhaps just to check on their sanity.

    I never realised how comfortable walking around in boxers is, I should do it more often.

    Cheers to everyone involved, we made a very good day out of it.

    Ashleigh : I got asked at the last minute to participate as a Pants Seller/Collector, and I admit, I hesitantly accepted. The whole idea of it was a little daunting at first, though once Kara and I had sorted ourselves out and got on the train, it was a smooth ride.

    As my fellow participates have noted, the first ride to Outer Harbour got a great reaction. They did a fantastic job stripping on the train, keeping straight faces while wearing just underwear and shirts while other passangers stared in awe…

    Once we arrived at Outer Harbour, as a group we failed to notice the train pulling away from the station 😛 So for the next 40 minutes we decided to entertain ourselves by performing a “Mexican Pants Wave” at the cars, cyclists and slow driving, stalker-like old people that came by (some of the boys even chased a few cars!). It was a great way for us as a group to have a good laugh and have fun.

    When our next train arrived, we all sat scattered on the train. Kara and I walked down from one end to the other, asking the passengers if they would like to donate their pants to our charity “Pants for Peace – providing pants for the homeless”. Some were shocked (one lady in particular was not at all impressed at our lack of professionalism, and could not see why we were infact wearing pants ourselves), and others were entertained by us even suggesting such a thing.

    Once we arrived back at Adelaide Station, there was again another sale – “PANTS FOR SALE! COME GET YOUR $1 PANTS HERE!!”

    If you couldnt make it, you missed out on a great day!

    Jennifer: First I have to say that I had less than no intention of coming along to this event, but a last minute request somewhat changed my mind.

    I still had no plans to de-pant, but I was willing to come along.

    I’m not going to do a play by play, it’s already been done and quite well.

    While my participation level was basically non existent I did still have fun(despite how it may have looked to some ;-P)

    Gotta say I’m miffed at myself and the lack of preparation time coz it seemed like it would have been awesome to run around in my undies, maybe next time huh!

    Mob Report: AFM#6: Food Court Fun Run

    We had 16 people come out and brave the cold and rain to participate in some flash mobbing fun today including many new faces. The instructions for the two mobs that we did can be found here

    , and the videos are below.

    Fun Run Video: 

    watch riding in cars with boys in divx

    download season of the witch divx

    [youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8zwEXaPZFA]

    (also on youtube)

    Ships Ahoy Video:

    [youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPfF5JUC8wE]

    (also on youtube)

    It would be great to get some comments from those who came out to add another dynamic to this report. Let us know things you liked/ didn’t like about the idea and organisation, perhaps some funny spectator reactions you saw or anything else that comes to mind.