Just an update for the most excellent Epic Super Hero Battle 2010 happening this weekend!  This is just an update, and here is the full Epic Super Hero Battle post.

PUB CRAWL

Our partners in this melee – AZ Cacophony – are doing a pub crawl again before the battle. This is totally optional. If you’re interested, the crawl starts at noon.

WHERE TO GO FOR THE BATTLE

Both sides will meet separately on Mill Ave in Tempe, then come together as a group.  Note that this is a participation event! If you’re not in costume, don’t come!

Villains — You’re being led by Ruth Carter. Villains — You’re being led by Ruth Carter. You are meeting by the KPMG building on Rio Salado at 2:00.  See the map!

Heroes — Jeff Moriarty is directing things for your side. You are meeting on 1st and Ash (in the Monti’s Parking Lot)  See the map!

MAP: Map of Parking and Meetup Locations! <– This is the map!

WHEN TO BE THERE

Saturday, April 17th – Both Heroes and Villains need to be parked, dressed and gathered with their groups by NO LATER THAN 2:00p. We highly recommend planning on arriving at 1:45 to make sure you can find the group. If you get there early — WAIT! No rogue agents, please. As cool as it sounds… it’s not. The group is better.

THE BATTLE

The battle will take place on Mill Ave, working our way up towards the Light Rail station. We’re going to stay on public property so we don’t disrupt any of the business on Mill. No none wants to get arrested. Well, none of us trying to organize want to get arrested. YMMV.

If you’re on Facebook you can RSVP for the event here and share it with your friends!

THE MOVIE

Since the movie Kick-Ass is opening that weekend, we’re going to ride the light rail in costume (fun!) and go see the movie in costume (more fun!).

We’ll take the Light Rail to the 3rd & Washington stop, then walk to the Arizona Center to see the 4:30 show (or 5:15 if we run late)

TWEETS AND PICTURES

Use the tag “ESHB10″ for tweets and pictures around the event.

After that you’re on your own, but you’re in full costume with a whole city to have fun in!  Hopefully you can think of something!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Epic Super Hero Battle ’10 is coming (improvaz.com)
• Real-Life Kick-Ass: Meet NYC’s Costumed Superheroes (cinematical.com)

courtesty of sheiladeeisme

The time has come once again for villains and heroes to gather in armed combat. Well… maybe just some healthy taunting and significant amount of faux battle. But it’ll still be fun!

There will be a pub crawl beforehand, then the battle, then we’re going to see the movie Kick Ass in full costume. You’re welcome to come to any combination of the above.

CHOOSE A SIDE

Decide whether you want to be a superhero or a supervillain. Ideally, we’d like equal numbers on either side, but we’re willing to let the law of averages work unfettered. Dress appropriately. Let your imagination run wild, but if you’re stuck, we’ll be having a costume meetup to help you with ideas.

WHAT NOT TO WEAR

* Licensed outfits. No need to get sued, right? Make it up, but feel free to draw inspiration.
* Real or realistic weapons. No need to get anyone shot, right?
* Nothing. Note the double-negative. In other words, cover thyself!

WHERE TO GO

Both sides will meet separately on Mill Ave in Tempe, then come together as a group.  Note that this is a participation event! If you’re not in costume, don’t come!

Villains — You’re being led by Ruth Carter. Villains — You’re being led by Ruth Carter. You are meeting by the KPMG building on Rio Salado at 2:00.  See the map!

Heroes — Jeff Moriarty is directing things for your side. You are meeting on 1st and Ash (in the Monti’s Parking Lot)  See the map!

MAP: Map of Parking and Meetup Locations! <– This is the map!

WHEN TO BE THERE

Saturday, April 17th – Both Heroes and Villains need to be parked, dressed and gathered with their groups by NO LATER THAN 2:00p. We highly recommend planning on arriving at 1:45 to make sure you can find the group. If you get there early — WAIT! No rogue agents, please. As cool as it sounds… it’s not. The group is better.

THE BATTLE

The battle will take place on Mill Ave, working our way up towards the Light Rail station. We’re going to stay on public property so we don’t disrupt any of the business on Mill. No none wants to get arrested. Well, none of us trying to organize want to get arrested. YMMV.

If you’re on Facebook you can RSVP for the event here and share it with your friends!

PUB CRAWL

Our partners in this melee – AZ Cacophony – are doing a pub crawl again before the battle. This is totally optional. If you’re interested, the crawl starts at noon.

THE MOVIE

Since the movie Kick-Ass is opening that weekend, we’re going to ride the light rail in costume (fun!) and go see the movie in costume (more fun!).

We’ll take the Light Rail to the 3rd & Washington stop, then walk to the Arizona Center to see the 4:30 show (or 5:15 if we run late)

COSTUME SHOPPING MEETUP

Stuck for costume ideas?  We’re having a Costuming Meetup at Easley’s Fun Shop at 509 W McDowell Rd on Saturday, April 10th, at 11:00am. Stop on by, get costume ideas, then we’ll probably get a bite to eat for lunch afterwards.

HASHTAG

For all Flickr and Twitter references, use IMPROVAZ or ESHB10 (Epic Super Hero Battle 10).

Here’s a clip of the mayhem from last year.  Look like fun? We think so. See you on April 17th!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Kick-Ass Inspires Real Life Superhero Brigade (screenhead.com)
• New ‘Kick-Ass’ Trailer Hits The ‘Net (splashpage.mtv.com)
• Captain Jackson, Michigan’s Real-Life Superhero (laughingsquid.com)

Image by ousooner44 via Flickr

We’re excited to announce the details behind the 2nd Annual No Pants AZ Light Rail Ride. Once again we’re doing it in conjunction with Improv Everywhere’s No Pants Subway Ride, and everyone is invited to participate!

The event will take place at 2:00pm on Sunday, January 10. Everything you need to know is in this post. Please read it carefully!

REQUIREMENTS FOR PARTICIPATION

1) Willing to take pants off on light rail.
2) Able to keep a straight face about it.

**THIS IS A PARTICIPATORY EVENT. DO NOT SHOW UP UNLESS YOU PLAN TO TAKE YOUR PANTS OFF.**

DETAILS

When: Sunday, January 10 at 2:00 PM Sharp! (Over by around 4:00)
Bring: A backpack and a fare card.
Wear: Normal clothes (hat, jacket, etc)
Mid Party: There will be a mostly unofficial gathering at Starbucks at the midway point

WHERE

There are two starting points – choose whichever one is closest to you:

WEST SIDE
Start: Montebello/19th Ave
Stop: 1st Ave & Van Buren
Return: Central & Van Buren

EAST SIDE
Start: Price/Apache
Stop: 3rd St & Washington
Return: 3rd St & Jefferson

Check out the Light Rail map for more details on the stop locations.

HOW IT WORKS

Be at the West Side or East Side starting point station and ready to board the train at 2:00pm sharp. It is the same time for both stops. Be early if you need to, especially if you need to buy a light rail pass.

Watch for Team Leaders (identified by a red bandana tied to their bag): The Team Leaders may try to split people into small groups to board different trains, depending how many people show up.

Don’t take off your pants until you’re on the train – Once we board the train and it starts moving, take off your pants and put them in your backpack. If you’d like to use a briefcase, purse, grocery bag, or whatever instead of a backpack that’s fine too. You are responsible for your own pants and they should be with you at all times. If anyone asks you why you removed your pants, tell them that they were “getting uncomfortable” (or something along those lines.)

Act normal - Stay with your group. Sit in the car like you normally would. Read a magazine, listen to your iPod, etc. You do not know any of the other pantsless riders. If questioned, tell folks that you “forgot to wear pants” and yes you are “a little cold.” Insist that it is a coincidence that others also forgot their pants. Be nice and friendly and normal.

Do not tell people you are doing a prank! You don’t really notice anything odd about people not wearing pants.

We will have photographers on hand to take pictures documenting the event. We need everyone else to just act casual. If you bring a camera, be very discrete and only take a few. It’s supposed to look like a normal train ride.

You can wear fun underwear if you like, but nothing that screams out, “I wore this because I’m doing a silly stunt.” Wear two pairs of underwear if it makes you feel more comfortable. Don’t wear a thong or anything else that might offend people. Our aim is to make people laugh, not piss them off.

Don’t disrupt the Light Rail – While the Phoenix Police Department said that wearing your underwear in public isn’t illegal, don’t do anything dumb. All responsibility for your actions during this event are entirely your own.

Disembark at your Stop station and follow your Team Leader to the Arizona Center, where we will be getting a nice cup of coffee at Starbucks.

At 3:15 start heading back to your Return stations. Try to stay with your group, but if you need to leave earlier (or want to stay later) that’s entirely up to you and your group. The same rules apply as above.

Update: There will be a group photo session at the coffee shop when both groups meet.

Update: An after-party is planned at Dave’s Electric Brew pub back at the ASU Stadium stop. Details: http://tinyurl.com/NoPantsParty

Last year was a lot of fun and we’re anticipating more people in 2010! Spread the word and tell your friends, just make sure they read all the rules!

If you talk about it on Twitter, use the hashtag #NoPantsAZ.

If you’re on Facebook you can RSVP at the event there, but that’s optional.

See you on the 10th!

Our first mp3 Experiment was a rocking success with at least 100 people showing up to participate!  The starting point was the giant Christmas tree in front of the MadCap theaters on Mill, and everything looked fairly quiet until even just 5 minutes before the start, then suddenly waves of people with headphones on started pouring into the area!  We were worried about people starting at different times, so used big cue cards to get everyone (hopefully) going in synch.

Marching and mayhem

Divided into Red and Blue teams by birthday (though the Blue team was a bit larger), the groups separated and started marching (really, marching) up Mill Ave.  Their first stop was to engage in some imaginary warfare! The Blue team began taunting the Red team across the street, who in turn drew an imaginary bow and arrow and fired at the Blues. Blues fell to the sidewalk in dramatic piles and the Reds celebrated their victory!  Drivers stopped in traffic craned around trying to figure out what was going on, and this is where pedestrians really started to realize something odd was afoot.

We skipped merrily along to the next intersection, where the Red Team circled around like airplanes and the Blue Team spread peace and love. A few pedestrians were hoping anxiously for the light to change to get away from the weirdness.  This was not their lucky day, because when the light changed the teams all crossed and high-fived each other along the way. Some bystanders scurried to get out of the way while others just played along and started high-fiving.

After the high-fives, two covert agents handed out little bottles of bubbles. As the procession continued north bubbles filled the air and patrons inside the stores started peering out. The Blue Team then contended with imaginary ringing cell-phones, and the Red Team turned into tourists with imaginary cameras. A passerby called the Blue Team “A bunch of liars!” for talking into their imaginary phones, while a few people posed and flashed smiles for the Red Team’s photographic attempts.

Confusion, Coffee, and Disco

At the next intersection… What is THAT!?! Both teams pointed over the top of a building, gasping in disbelief at the imaginary thing on the roof!  Several people on all four corners of the intersection craned to see what was going on, especially when “it” apparently leaped across the street to a different building. Whatever “it” was, it got a lot of attention! Here we noticed that we had an entourage – some pedestrians had started following us to see what we would do next.

In front of Starbucks all 100 people lined up to go in… but didn’t order. We nodded to patrons, briefly regarded the menu, decided against ordering anything, and exited out a side door. We began performing YMCA as we continued up Mill, which was a strange sight to everyone outside the prank who couldn’t hear the music. One of the servers inside a restaurant we passed clearly recognized our sweet moves as he started dancing along in his window with a huge grin on his face.

Grand Finale

We then paused in front of an adult store where the men turned their eyes away in disgust while the women peered in the window with enthusiasm.  Everyone fought a round of itchy-butt syndrome as they moved to the finale where everyone was feeling strong now as we did a slo-mo, low-budget reenactment of the victory run from Rocky! It was only then we realized how many people we picked up along the way as the little amphitheater was packed. We had hoped for 40 people to show up, and our final headcount was around 100.

This was by far the most planning we’ve put into an event, and it it was a blast! We learned quite a few things, including whether anyone would even show up!  That answer was a definite Yes!  We also learned how people react to instructions, where we need more (and less) time, and the complications of things like timing streetlights.

Got pictures or video clips? Upload them here or let us know where to find them!

Event pictures on Flickr (tag with mp3az and improvaz).
Event album on Facebook.

Some of the video came out a little jagged, but you can watch the high points in all their crazy glory below:

We will do more of these in the future, so stay tuned to our Facebook page or mailing list for all the latest news!

If you have an mp3 player and want to take part in a fun flashmob, come on down to our first mp3 experiment! Basically you download a secret mp3 to your player, show up and everyone presses Play at the same time.  So everyone is getting instructions at the same time, so you learn about the flashmob as you go.

Thanks to everyone who came out for our first mp3 experiment!  It was a rousing success!  Pictures and videos will be online soon!

We’ve modeled this off of Improv Everywhere’s mp3 Experiments, but have come up with a pretty crazy script for our first outing – should be a blast!  If you want to participate, bookmark this page because it will have everything you need to know:

Mp3 Experiment Details

As with all our events, participation is mandatory!  We are already covered for photographs and videos, so only show up if you’re going to play along with the group.

When: Saturday, December 12th, 2:00pm – watch for the sign to start!

Where: 7th Street, west of Mill Ave in Tempe, right next to the giant Christmas tree.

What to Do: Show up at the location with the mp3 on your player and press play at exactly 2:00pm! Do NOT listen to the mp3 in advance!

RSVP: You can RSVP on our Facebook event if you so desire, but all you’re required to do is show up!

What to Bring: Your mp3 player & Headphones.

What to Wear: If your birthday is between January and June, wear a blue shirt.  If your birthday is between July and December, wear a red shirt.

How to get the mp3

The mp3 is listed below!

If you have iTunes: Subscribe to our Podcast

To download mp3 manually: Download mp3 file

That should cover it, but if we missed anything ask away!

The mp3 and all the final details on where to go and what to do can be found on this post!