A hot Saturday in the city and what better way to spend it than at Central Park? Except it wasn’t just any other day at the park. Today the four elements: Sun, Rain, Cloud and Ice battled for “Element of the Year Award”. It was all part of Improv Everywhere, a group of pranksters and hoaxers based in NYC. Today hundreds of people shared in on the experience of the latest Mp3 Experiment (III): The Search for Steve, including me.
It all began when I received an e-mail from their mailing list telling me all about the event. It was on a Saturday so it was perfect since I had nothing to do. The instructions said to download a specific mp3 file according to the season you were born in, autumn for me. We were assigned an element according to our season that led us through a bunch of social activities and games such as Simon says. It was great seeing such warm New Yorkers actually talking and socializing with complete strangers. Before the event I was talking with some people I had just met and out of nowhere some girl comes up to us and decides to join our group, she said something like “Hi I’m (name), and I’m joining your group”.
Bystanders were dumbfounded by our actions, here you have a big group of people running, jumping and dancing around all silently listening to their iPods, they were in awe of the sight. After several activities, our group leader led us through the park to our final destination where we met up with the other 3 elements and rest of their followers. Our search for Steve was almost complete, but we had one last thing to do to summon Steve. We had to dance, dance our hearts out in the middle of Central Park. (Props to anyone who can spot me in the picture to the right. Hint: I’m the left half of the picture).
After the summoning was complete Steve emerged from a cloud of haze by the lake. He told us he was summoned on this day to bring us word about a great battle. The contestants? Our group leaders, the Elements. They would battle it out in a free-for-all match until the last man standing for the “Element of the Year Awardâ€.
The battle commenced and the four Elements battled one another. People cheered others booed; it was just like a Roman Arena during a gladiatorial fight. The first to fall was Cloud, then minutes later Ice. The fight was intense, now only 2 contestants were left.
It was a clash of the titans as Rain and the Sun battled it out for the final prize. The match kept going back and forward until The Sun with sudden blow delivered the final punch. 
Rain was down and The Sun was declared the winner. After the excitement of the fight was over there was one last thing to do. Build the longest conga line ever, and so we did. We danced all around Central Park.
Great day today with the Improv Everywhere crew, thanks for an awesome evening. I only wished more of my friends were able to come out and those I forgot to tell. But next time, it will be better, larger and more fun.
Highlight of the day: seeing those unplugged bystanders trying to understand just what the hell was going on. Oh yea and sorry to those people that were having the birthday party at the park but the Elements do not choose time or date of their epic battles.
To view more pictures of the event click here.
Click here to download the mp3 files from Improv Everywhere.