Over 3,000 participants downloaded an MP3 file and pressed play simultaneously in retail stores in Midtown Manhattan. The masses converged on Bryant Park where a series of fun activities unfolded, culminating in a huge “mummy dance party.” This was the 7th installment in our Mp3 Experiment series.
Enjoy the video above first, and then go behind the scenes with our photos below. Next week we will be releasing a bonus video with more footage from the project. Subscribe to our YouTube channel so you’ll know when it’s live. We’d like to thank Bryant Park for generously hosting the second half of the event and all of the stores for putting up with the unauthorized first half.
I was thrilled when the good folks that run Bryant Park agreed to host this year’s Mp3 Experiment. It’s an incredibly gorgeous space right in the heart of Midtown Manhattan. I figured it would be exciting to have participants converge on the park from all directions, so we had everyone start the experiment in retail stores anywhere in the blue shaded area in the map below:
There are dozens of stores in the area, including several huge national chains. While we were a permitted event in Bryant Park, we obviously did not have permission to stage our event in these stores. I wanted to make the actions in the stores as peaceful and subtle as possible.
It was tough to know how large to make the starting zone. I didn’t want the stores to be too crowded, but I also didn’t want participants to be so spread out that they would not see each other. Of course, I also didn’t know how many people would attend. It seems like we did a pretty good job of filling all of the stores on the map, big and small. A few of the larger stores like The Gap were perhaps a bit excessively crowded.
After the dance party the Mp3 Experiment came to a close. Everyone was instructed to stick around and help clean up all the toilet paper, and a really great percentage of folks not only cleaned up their own mess, but others as well. Bryant Park also had a crew on hand to help with waste removal, as they were prepared for the toilet paper insanity. In the end, we had the park looking like it did before we got there, but with many awesome new memories created.