T.O. Magazine - Joe Rayment – April 2006
Toronto deputy mayor Joe Pantalone steps to the microphone:“Let’s get it on!” In front of him, 100kids go psycho. They run across Dundas Square windmilling pillows and beating each other senseless. Feathers fly and laughter echoes.
Sometimes, you have to do something ridiculous to break the monotony of city life. But good chaos takes planning. Here’s how to do it.
Dream up a concept Inspiration is everywhere. Look to your personal experiences for ideas.
“All you need to do is take an activity from your childhood, multiply the number of participants and put it in an urban setting,” says Newmindspace’s Kevin Bracken, organizer of the Dundas Square pillow fight.
If you still can’t think of an idea, steal one.Sites like Torontoist.com and the SpacingWire (www.spacing.ca/wire) are good place sto see some of Toronto’s stranger ideas.Watch The Globe and Mail’s Social Studies and the Toronto Star’s Ideas sections for odd events from the rest of the world.
Joel Friesen of Culturehole.com turned the TTC into a giant board game after being inspired by a transit map. “I realized that the map is a perfect layout for this game that I used to play as a kid.” He swapped plastic pieces for people, board for transit system,and turned the city into a life-sized version of the old board game Scotland Yard.
Watch your timing Tie in your idea with a recognized event and people will be more accepting of it.
When you’re asking people to come out,they’ll ask you why they’d want to dress up and parade around the city. When you’re parading, people will ask why there are 50drunken bunnies in the street. “Because it’s Easter” is a good enough answer for everyone.
A week before Christmas, about 100 Santas met for a BurnOn.ca event called Santarchy. They spent the night wanderingthe city, smoking pot, drinking beer andsinging classics like “Deck my balls” and“I’m dreaming of a White Russian.”
They also get away with this every year.“I think the thinking is, it’s bad publicity for the police to arrest a whole bunch of Santasa week before Christmas,” says organizerDave McKay.What do anti-gun rallies and pillow fightshave in common? Samurai, apparently.
Keep it simple Keep your event as straight forward as possible— complicated rules will only make people hesitant about participating. The ideal structure is simple, but produces complex and surprising behaviour.
Every Thursday night, Matt Collins meets about a dozen university students and musicians to play a game of Manhunt.
It’s a hide-and-seek variant played in a different part of the city every week. One person is declared the man hunter, or “it,”and everyone else has two minutes to hide. Playing games in a place like Casa Loma makes you see it in a whole new light— plus it offers some great hiding places.
When a man hunter touches you, you’re“brainwashed” and become a man hunter too. As man hunters grow in numbers, they strategize to corner the remaining fugitives. Ninja Bakesale Photo by Joel Friesen
Do it cheap Asking everyone to bring a little something goes a long way to offset costs. If possible,buy materials second-hand or make them yourself. Never charge people to participate. Part of the reason the city can be boring is because all the best things are reserved for the rich.
Joel Friesen’s Ninja Bake Sale cost him next to nothing. When he announced it, he asked everyone to bring “honourable” baked goods. He also posted instructions on how to make ninja masks out of T-shirts on his website. The day of the sale, Friesen and his friends were able to raise funds for ninja awareness while hardly spending a cent of their own.
Put the word out Think of communities that would like your event. They’re your target audience — advertis to them. One posting on the right message board will get you more participants than a hundred untargeted fliers.
“Send them the message, and if they think your idea’s interesting they’ll forward it along to their friends,” Dave McKay says.“Complete strangers will show up, but they’ll be like-minded strangers.”
For most of the events McKay organizes,he targets the cacophony or theatre communities.This worked great for Santarchy, but the same groups weren’t interested in Critical Ass, a nude bike parade down Queen Street. Instead, he targeted bicycle activists and nudists. The voyeurs found the event themselves.
Pick people up You are your best billboard. If you turn the city into a playground, people will want to join in — let them. In the case of Santarchy, Santas bring extra hats to give out on the way and absorb people as they go.
When Globe writer Liz Clayton tagged along for a game of Manhunt, David Suzuki happened to walk by. “Hey, David Suzuki,do you want to play Manhunt with us?” He declined, but they had the right idea.
Adapt These events are all about recontextualizing the city. They’re about taking something cold and functional and turning it into something fun.
If every one of these steps goes catastrophically wrong, work with it. Adapt. You can reconceptualize your mistakes.
Kevin Bracken made every effort to make sure there was nothing going on in Dundas Square the day of his pillow fight. In spite of this, when people arrived with their pillows,they were met with an anti-gun rally.They were talking about moving the fight to city hall when deputy mayor Joe Pantalone asked them if they wanted to join in.
“Ladies and gentlemen, would you turnaround for a minute?” announced Pantalone on stage. “We can learn a lesson from these kids: that we should fight not with guns, but with pillows.” All the television cameras turned from the stage to capture the fight. Bracken couldn’t be happier with how things worked out.
“We had our pillow fight in the commercial heart of the city, Dundas Square, with many smiles and not one problem.”
