A couple of weeks ago two AFM organisers were involved in a short interview for Radio Adelaide. They talked about the group, flash mobs in general and the upcoming mob. Check out the video below.
(also on youtube)
AFM would like to thank Claire Knight and Radio Adelaide for having us on. download darkness falls
This post is a report of how our first mob went. Check out the photos and videos, read the report and leave a comment at the bottom if you wish.
Video: Ken Kimber & Dom Legg
Photos: Tudor Taylor, Kirby Crawford, Kay Walker, Steve Thomas (so far)
Here is the email that was sent out on Friday 19 Oct 2007:
G’day Mobbers,
The time is almost upon us.
In order for our mob to be as unexpected as possible to our ‘audience,’ the specific details of the action to take place will be kept under wraps until tomorrow. This email contains instructions for you to follow to obtain those specific details, so listen in.
There are a couple of things we need to do first. Everyone needs to read these guidelines
that we have created to ensure the mob works properly. If you have guests coming, you need to inform them of the guidelines also.
This mob isn’t entirely dependent on time cues, but it does help to have everyone on the same clock, so please visit this website and set your time piece to the local Australia/ Adelaide time.
Details:
General Location: Rundle Mall
Approx. duration: 6 mins
To get the rest of the details you need to come to the fountain outside of the museum on North Terrace and find a man wearing a green t-shirt, green shorts and carrying a green clip board and say: “Good morning Mr. Penguin.” He will hand you a piece of paper, you need to move away, read the instructions and follow them.
Mr. Penguin will only be at the fountain between 11:10 am and 11:40 am so you must come within those times.
It looks like its going to be great weather tomorrow, so we hope to see you all there.
Remember the most important thing is to HAVE FUN!!!
Adelaide Flash Mob
These are the instructions that mobbers received after visiting Mr. Penguin outside the museum: download deja vu movie
Mob #1: Look Up!
Duration: 5 minutes
Location: Rundle Mall, in front of Toys R Us building, near public phones.
By 11:50, mobbers should be casually blended into the area surrounding the Toys R Us building. Browse in the shops, sit on the chairs, look through the shop windows and make sure you have a clear view of the area around the public phones.
At 11:58, be on the look out for ‘Mr Penguin.’
At 12:00, Mr Penguin will walk along the mall, stop, look up towards the top of the Toys R Us building and appear transfixed by something up there.
At the cue of Mr Penguin looking up, mobbers need to start emerging from their positions, looking up and apparently seeing what he’s looking at and congregate around him.
The congregation should take place gradually over the space of a minute- like it would naturally happen if we were really looking at something. Mobbers need to start a commotion, looking, pointing, chattering… ‘Wow,’ ‘oh my,’ ‘what is it?,’ ‘its huge,’ ‘its tiny,’ ‘fantastic,’ etc.
At 12:01, all mobbers should be congregated and continuing the commotion.
At 12:04, Mr Penguin will silently put his hand down and walk away.
Over the next minute, mobbers should silently stop pointing and go back to what they were doing before hand; browsing shops etc, before leaving the area.
By 12:05, all mobbers should have blended back into the general shopping crowd.
By 12:15, all mobbers should have left the area completely.
Notes:
Before the mobbing starts, don’t be afraid to spread out. There are a number of shops that you can look in while still being able to see the phone boxes.
If anyone asks you what you are looking at, try and answer with something like: ‘I don’t know, but its big,’ ‘No idea, but its scary,’ ‘That’s what I was wondering, what do you think?’ In other words, give them anything but a real answer.
While making the commotion, try and be as energetic and sincere as possible. Hopefully we’ll be able to draw a number of people from the general public into looking up as well, trying to figure out what we’re looking at.
Keep these instructions hidden and don’t throw them into a public bin. HAVE FUN!
Nick aka Mr. Penguin
The day started off great as it was nice and sunny and it looked like there would be plently of people in the mall by lunch time. I have to admit that I was a bit nervous for the time leading up to this mob, so I’m quite glad that it turned out so well. I’d like to say thanks to all those who turned up, and to those who didn’t, I hope you can make it to the next one. Judging by the number of instruction sets I gave out I’m estimating there was between 25-30 mobbers who took part in AFM#1: Look Up!
One thing that I personally enjoyed, which other people didn’t experience, was giving out the instructions from my position on the bench, under the tree, near the fountain, outside the museum on North Terrace. The thing was that I really didn’t know who was involved so I looked upon every passer by as a potential mobber. As soon as someone entered my field of vision I would sneakily look at them and try and work out if they were walking to me or just past me. I also happened to be sitting next to a bin, so there was a number of people who were simply heading over to put something in it and probably wondered why I was peering at them with a stupid grin on my face.
Memorable momments:
-When we first arrived at the fountain there was a girl sitting on one of the benches already who grinned to herself as we approached. Dom said ‘I bet shes on of them,’ I wasn’t so sure, but low and behold she came over shortly after and collected her instructions.
-At one point a girl came and sat right next to me on the bench but didn’t say anything. She was messing with her phone, it looked like she was ‘pretending’ to check her messages. Shortly after she said, “oh screw it, good morning Mr Penguin,” so I gave her the instructions and she left.
For the mob itself I approached the designated spot from the Rundle Street end of Rundle mall and timed it so I got there alomst exactly on 12 noon. I pretended to stretch as I reached the Toys R Us building then started looking up. There was a short time while I stood there looking up, pointing and talking loudly, before anyone else got there but it felt like a lifetime. A small thought started growing in my head that perhaps I had got the time wrong and no one was coming and that I was just making a complete fool of myself, but then I heard some loud shouts and suddenly people started appearing from everywhere.
Since I was the first to arrive and leave as well as being at the front of the group, I didn’t really get to see much of the mob first hand. Luckily the video and photos were great and I talked to some people to get a feel for how it all went.
Memorable moments:
-Someone shouted out “hes gonna jump,” which evoked a big response from passers by.
-There was a shop keeper who happened to be giving out free samples of something right behind the mob and he loudly exclaimed, “this is great for business!”
-The cops showed up shortly after, presumably to break up the large group of people causing a commotion but of course we were long gone by then.
-A number of mobbers took out their cameras and phones to take photos of the top of the building which made it look much more authentic- nice thinking guys.
All in all it was a great mob, great fun to organise and great fun to participate in.
If you would like to be involved in future mobs by the Adelaide Flash mob then please join us, the more people we can get, the better. If you are on FaceBook you can join our group, find it by searching for ‘Adelaide Flash Mob.’ If you don’t have FaceBook then you can join our mailing list by sending a blank email to adelflashmob (AT) hotmail (DOT) com with the words ‘let me in,’ in the subject line.
If you would like to contribute something to this write up then you are most welcome. It would be great to see the event through someone else’s eyes. You can leave it in the comments section below or email to us on the address above.
See you at the next mob!
-Nick
We decided to organise this mob a little bit differently by playing around with the method of delivering instructions. In our previous two mobs we had asked people to email us to register their interest anytime before the mob, then the day before the event we would email all these people and tell them some instructions that they would need to follow on the day of the mob to get the full instructions. All this secrecy was to ensure that the general public/ business owners/ police/ security/ council didn’t have advance notice of our plans and wouldn’t be prepared for our coming or try to stop the event. I think it also added another level to the mob as it was like a Mission Impossible movie, making it more fun for both organisers and participants. However, the secrecy undoubtably had an effect on our attendance because, lets face it, people like to know what they’re getting themselves into especially if its potentially embarrasing.This time we decided to give the instructions out upfront to see how things turned out. The instructions were posted on the Facebook event and emailed out to everyone on our mailing list. Here they are:
Introducing AFM #3: “They don’t have pepsi!?”
We’re going to fill an area with mobbers (the cinema’s lobby), make a commotion about something (“They don’t have pepsi!?”) and vacate the area, leaving an empty void and confused and bewildered staff and moviegoers alike.
So, here’s the instructions for this evening, and we’ll see you there!
**********
1 – Everyone spreds themselves amongst the Cinema’s lobby area. Get in line at the Candy bar, play the games in the lobby, stand in groups with your friends, try to get some seats at one of the tables around the area… Make sure you’re in position by around 7:15pm. Favour the left side as well, facing the candy bar. Some people should fill out, but the majority will happen on the left.
2 – Three “key mobbers” will get in line at the Candy Bar. Most of you have seen/met Mr. Penguin (Nick) before so keep an eye out for him. (about 7:25pm)
3 – Mobber 1 gets to the front of the line, and asks for a pepsi. (roughly 7:30pm)
4 – After being told that they don’t sell pepsi, mobber 1 asks loudly “You don’t have pepsi?”
5 – Mobber 2 continues with “What’s this? They don’t have pepsi?”
6 – Mobber 3 further back, “They don’t have pepsi!?”
7 – General mobbers start “HURMF”ing and “They don’t have pepsi?”ing, making a growing commotion.
8 – Flash mob gets upset and leaves the cinema area.
**In addition to the instructions above: We have organised a bunch of people to be in the line for the candy bar on the left hand side to set off the mob. Look for me (tall guy with short brown hair, blue polo shirt and light coloured shorts) nearer the back of the line at around 7:30.
We want mobbers to gather themselves mostly on the left hand side in between the ticket booth and the candy bar.
Once you hear the initial ‘theres no pepsi’ that is the cue to start the commotion. The initial mobbers will start walking away after a time and the mobbers should all follow in a group, continuing the commotion.
Mobbers are invited to meet afterwards outside the New York bar and grill.
AFM Organisers
Check out the video:
Heres how it went:
For this mob I stood aside as the ‘Mob Leader’ and we organised some other people to set off the mob. Mobber 1: the mobber who originally asked the question: Can I have a Pepsi? was played by Barny Smith. His mate, Mobber 2, who chimed in with: Did you say you don’t have pepsi? was played by Paul Whan. We used a digital recording device which Barny held, pretending it was a phone, to record the dialogue. Apparently the security are quite strict about to filming in the building so our cameramen had to be quite covert. I would also like to thank Ken Kimber and Sam King for their excellent filming once again.
There are two things which you need to pull off a good mob. First you need a large mobber turnout, and secondly you need a large number of bystanders to witness the mob. In AFM#1 we acheived both of these things, in #2 we acheived neither and in this one (#3) we had a large turnout, around 30-40 people I think, but the cinema lobby itself was quite bare. However, this also worked to our advantage because basically everyone who was in the area was a mobber so it was quite a noticable effect when we all got up and left at once in disgust leaving the couple of movie-goers and the candybar staff slack jawed.
It was great to see a number of people getting into it with their ‘They don’t have Pepsi-ing?’ We didn’t have any problems with security or anything so it looks like the method of giving out the instructions up-front didn’t have any noticable effects. If you participated feel free to leave a comment below and tell us about your mobbing experience.
See you at the next mob
-Nick
Finally, the report from our second Flash Mob; Tapitty Tap.
This is the email sent out to mobbers on Friday 14th December 2007:
G’day Mobbers,
The time is almost upon us.
In order for our mob to be as unexpected as possible to our ‘audience,’ the specific details of the action to take place will be kept under wraps until tomorrow. This email contains instructions for you to follow to obtain those specific details, so listen in.
There are a couple of things we need to do first. Everyone needs to read these guidelines that we have created to ensure the mob works properly. If you have guests coming, you need to inform them of the guidelines also.
This mob isn’t entirely dependent on time cues, but it does help to have everyone on the same clock, so please visit this website and set your time piece to the local Australia/ Adelaide time.
Details:
General Location: Near the beach end of Jetty Road
Approx. Time: 1pm
To get the rest of the details you need to come to the Playground at Wigley Reserve between 11:50am and 12:30 pm on Saturday. Find a man dressed in a blue t-shirt, blue shorts and carrying a green clipboard and approach him. This man is known as Mr Penguin; stand in front of him on one leg and he will hand you a piece of paper with the rest of the instructions. Do not talk during this exchange.
Mr. Penguin will only be at the Playground between 11:50 am and 12:30 pm so you must come within those times.
If it’s a hot day remember to be sun smart. Mobbers will be invited to meet up post mob to discuss the event and share thoughts/ ideas.
Adelaide Flash Mob
This is what happened:
Here are the instructions that mobbers received after meeting Mr Penguin at the playground:
AFM#2: Tappitty Tap
Locations to be aware of for this mob:
• Walkway area- walking area bordered by the tall stone monument with a ship on top, the start of the jetty and the two grass areas.
• The Jetty- the long walkway thing sticking out into the sea from the land which people fish off of.
• Right Rail- the rail on the right hand side of the jetty if you are looking along the jetty from the land.
By 12:50 pm you should be generally scattered in and around the Walkway area. Spread out anywhere in this area (including the grass), look natural and make sure you have a clear view of the Walkway area in between the monument and The Jetty.
At 1pm Mr Penguin (the man in blue) will take a walk through the Walkway area and then freeze mid-step.
As soon as he freezes you should quickly and quietly form a line behind him facing The Jetty.
Once most of the line has formed, Mr Penguin will continue his walk towards The Jetty. When he gets about halfway, the next person in line should start following him. When that person gets halfway, the next person should set out also and so on.
Once Mr Penguin reaches The Jetty he will look for the first available position on the Right Rail and take up a stance of looking out onto the beach with both hands on the Right Rail.
Mr Penguin will then start to tap on the Right Rail in a pattern that goes something like this: tap clap tap tap clap, tap clap tap tap clap, tap clap tap tap clap, and so on.
As each person reaches The Jetty, they should look for the next available position on the Right Rail and begin to tap and clap in time with Mr Penguin until all mobbers are lined up along the Right Rail tapping and clapping.
Continue to tap and clap until Mr Penguin stops. Once everyone has stopped, Mr Penguin will turn and walk away from the Right Rail. Everyone should then follow him keeping in line. Mr Penguin will go for a walk around the area; everyone should follow him, keeping in line and copy everything he does.
To finish off, Mr Penguin will walk back into the Walkway area and once again freeze mid-step. At this point people should one by one walk off and blend back into the crowd starting with the last person in the line until only Mr Penguin remains.
Mobbers should not speak throughout the entire mob. Everyone is invited to meet back at the location where you picked up these instructions to discuss and enjoy the mob with your fellow mobbers.
Please Do Not let these instructions get seen by non mobbers. Please don’t litter.
How it went:
As you can see by the video we had a lot less people than we had hoped for and were led to beleive were coming based on emailed expressions of interest. We opened a discussion on Facebook to try and figure out why this was and got a range of reasons. We got incredibly unlucky with the weather… it was raining that morning which is when most people would have looked out the window and decided whether they were coming or not. We also underestimated the effect of this crazy time of year when theres so many things on with people getting ready for xmas etc. Glenelg might also have been a bit harder to get to than our first mob which was in town which also could’ve affected the turnout.
We had a bit of a chat afterwards with some of the mobbers who turned up and they all said that they had had fun, and once again it was fun to organise so thats all that matters in the long run. I’m sure we left some people wondering what was going on as they were strolling on the jetty or sitting on the grass. There was once particular couple who were sitting on a bench that the video didnt completely capture. I didn’t see it personally but I’m told that we got a good ‘what the’ reaction from them as we all silently walked around them in a line.
Thanks to Sam King and Ken Kimber for the video and of course the mobbers who showed up. The small turn out obviously wasn’t as good as a larger turn out but it was many times better than no turn out would have been so thanks again guys.
-Nick
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