Improv Arizona

Pillow Fight flashmob in Tempe

—

by

ImprovAZ
in

Tempe Pillow FightA flashmob hit the Tempe Marketplace to participate in International Pillow Fight Day! About 60 people showed up, and it was a blast.

Rumor was as many as 300 people were thinking about coming, so the original plan was to just spread out all across the mall. Things were supposed to start at 3:00, and a few minutes beforehand you could see people walking around with overly fat shopping bags and a knowing look in their eyes. Realizing there weren’t as many people coming, people began scouting around in quest of other possible pillow fighters.

Right before 3:00, people started to gather in front of Dave & Busters, sizing each other up and identifying their victims. At 3:00… everyone looked at each other, then whipped out their pillows!  It was ON!

People laughed and swung their pillows while baffled shoppers hustled away to make sure they got nowhere near the goofiness. The fight went on for about a minute before mall security showed up and asked everyone to break it up. The fighting stopped, but there was still untapped pillow aggression in the air.

A few minutes later dispersed group started new fights by the mall stage and down by the Harkins’ Theaters.  New people arrived who had missed the first fight and things got larger and crazier. The new fights went on for several minutes before mall security returned in force and told everyone to leave.

Check out the great pictures on Flickr! If you want to add your own, use the tag “azpillowfight” (and “improvaz” if you’re extra-special!)

It was short, but a lot of fun. Hopefully the next one won’t be on private property so it won’t get shut down so fast. It was another good flashmob, and they Valley is on track to growing a great flashmob community!

If you were at the Pillow Fight, post your thoughts in the comments below!  If you want to get involved in future flashmobs, watch this blog or join our Facebook page!

Comments

9 responses to “Pillow Fight flashmob in Tempe”

  1. Taryn Avatar
    Taryn

    Sweet! It has me as the picture for the cover story! Love it! I was invited to the pillow fight on facebook, and took my older sister and the two exchange students living with us. My mom took pictures. Thank you for setting this up. Can’t wait for the next flash or freeze mob. Will keep checking up with you guys.

    Reply
  2. Jeff Moriarty Avatar
    Jeff Moriarty

    @Taryn – You’re going to find yourself in a few places, because your picture ended up at the top of the Flickr post in the Arizona Flashmob Facebook page, too! 🙂

    Glad you came out – it was a lot of fun. We’re already planning the next ones!

    Reply
  3. Evie Avatar
    Evie

    I didn’t come to this one, mostly because I was uncomfortable doing something like this on private property that had the potential to be negatively disruptive, rather than just something unexpected, but I’m glad to see that it went off without too much trouble! Here’s to hoping the next one’s somewhere I won’t feel as uncomfortable causing a scene. 🙂

    Reply
  4. Sheila Dee Avatar
    Sheila Dee

    Today was a lot of fun! I did not participate but was able to take photos of the event (my specialty). The rest of my family participated and we even brought a friend. All had fun and want to participate in the next *stunt*!

    I will definitely be involved with future events! See ya next time!

    Reply
  5. stacie Avatar
    stacie

    I had planned to come but also had a ticket to Tempe Music Fest (which wasnt cheap) and once I got in there I found out it was a no re-entry so I was very sad to miss the pillow fight! Hopefully I can make it to the next event

    Reply
  6. Colin Avatar
    Colin

    I can’t wait for the next event. I will definitely be attending.
    We should do the next one where there arn’t a lot of stuck up security guards.
    Fun stuff!

    Reply
  7. Brandon Komar Avatar
    Brandon Komar

    Hey I thought it was a good turn out! I am happy that it was nothing like San Fran and we will definitely do it off of public prop next time.

    Reply
  8. Your Adorable CLS Avatar
    Your Adorable CLS

    This event was a ton of fun! The pictures & video footage are awesome. I think this was a great learning event for us…

    – Even though we were expecting possibly 300 people, I think next time we should specify a few different places to meet up. I think newbies would appreciate that and it guarantees we’ll have a good-sized group to film. Luckily it all worked out this time.

    – At one point during the pillow fight a security guard ask someone who was filming if they were part of the event. He’s response was something like, “we’re all independent people here,” which was a great answer until he added, “so suck it.” Saying “suck it” to security guards isn’t illegal but it doesn’t encourage them to like us enough to let us carry on with our shenanigans longer.

    – I heard a rumor that some participants were claiming what we were doing was ok b/c it was on Facebook. I think some participants thought we had permission from Tempe Marketplace to have the fight (we didn’t). Personally I think telling security guards that the event was advertised on Facebook in general is a bad idea.

    – While I was in the middle of the pillow fight I heard a fellow pillow fighter say that a security guard was hit with a pillow, and the tone made it sound like he was hit on purpose. I know all the rules posted said only to hit people who had pillows, but next time maybe it would help if we added that hitting non-pillow fighters with pillows might be assault and battery. I’d really prefer not to see my fellow pranksters get arrested b/c they got caught up in the moment.

    There’s my 2…well I guess 4 cents.

    Reply
  9. Johnny Avatar
    Johnny

    Yeah the next one should be a freeze mob….those just freak people out

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.