The response to our Frozen Grand Central mission has been unbelievable. The YouTube video has over 10 million views and counting. It’s been covered by The Today Show, Nightline, Good Morning America, and countless news outlets around the world.
Most interestingly, it’s inspired people in 70 other cities in 34 countries to stage their own freeze mission. Thousands of Global Agents worldwide in places like Romania, Poland, Italy, China, Sweden, and New Zealand have come together to make time stop for five short minutes. Below is a roundup of all of the videos we’ve seen of the various global freeze events. Congrats to all of the local organizers, and remember you can get involved yourself at IE Global.
Interactive Map of Freeze Events
Afton, Wyoming
Arcadia, CA
Århus, Denmark
Barcelona, Spain
Beijing, China
Berlin, Germany
Berne, Switzerland
Beirut, Lebanon
Bielefeld, Germany
Blacksburg, Virginia (Virgina Tech)
Bloomington, Minnesota
Bogota, Colombia
Boston, Massachusetts
Brisbane, Australia
Bratislava, Slovakia
Brno, Czech Republic
Brussels, Belgium
Calgary, Canada
Chicago, Illinois
Coimbra, Portugal
Constanta, Romania
Copenhagen, Denmark
Dublin, Ireland
Durham City, UK (Durham University)
Edina, Minnesota
Edinburgh, UK
Florence, Italy
Helsinki, Finland
Hong Kong, China
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Lausanne, Switzerland
Leszczynski, Poland
London, UK
Los Angeles, California
Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Madrid, Spain
Manila, Philippines
Mexico City, Mexico
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Montreal, Canada
Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Nuremburg, Germany
Orlando, Florida
Oxford, Ohio
Paris, France
Portland, Oregon
Prague, Czech Republic
Pretoria, South Africa
Quebec City, Canada
Raleigh, North Carolina
Rome, Italy
San Diego, California
San Francisco, California
Santa Barbara, California
Seattle, Washington
Shanghai, China
St. Andrews University, Scotland, UK
Stockholm, Sweden
Sydney, Australia
Toronto, Canada
Tokyo, Japan
Utrecht, Netherlands
Vancouver, Canada
Vienna, Austria
Vilnius, Lithuania
Wellington, New Zealand
Zürich, Switzerland
Atlanta, Georgia (no video yet)
Riga, Latvia (no video yet)
Malmö, Sweden (no video yet)
Shreveport, Louisiana (no video yet)
Did we miss any? Let us know in the comments.
Remarkable! I’ve never seen anything so fascinating. The responses of the uninitiated are interesting; they instinctively grasp for any ‘reasonable’ explanation: they’re posing for a picture, staging a protest, etc. Their minds can’t quite wrap around the idea that maybe, just maybe! time has stopped in some manner. It confuses and frightens some, arouses anger in others, and inspires giddiness in most. Then there are the few sad people who simply ignore the phenomenon and slog through like nothing is different- untouched, unmoved, unliving.
Where do I sign up? I want to be a part of it! :-)
There was also one in Wellington, New Zealand.
Atlanta, GA was also a part of the synchronized national - or I should say, North American Freeze on the 23rd. Alas, our video crew was trapped in a horrendous traffic jam and arrived too late. We are trying to round up what we can. Over 70 agents participated in an area called Atlantic Station. We were in an open courtyard between numerous restaurants and lots of pedestrian traffic. Go to Improve Everywhere Global and check out the Atlanta section for personal accounts, photos and reactions.
Chicago had a slo-mo/freeze in an Apple store as well - our second official event (after no pants).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F2PDUjyhAg
Freeze in place will happen today in central railway station in Riga, Latvia
The Netherlands did one aswell in the central station of Utrecht:
Youtube:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=jTkj2JdQMAY
Better Quality (but on a Dutch site):
http://www.ad.nl/utrecht/stad/2089164/Honderden_bevriezen_op_station.html
The Netherlands (Shoqs) froze on Utrecht Central Station on the 27th of February, the video is currently in editing.
It would be great to make a “fake news report” about a pandemy or a global disease or something like that with all these videos :p
Hello !
You forgot Strasbourg (France), no really a freeze, but still, take a look !
It took place on the 9th of february :
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4d9lh_flashmob-a-la-gare-de-strasbourg_creation
http://strasmobs.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=19108820507
What about Philadelphia, Pennsylvania??? I’ll be more than willing to help organize something here in Philly :) !!
I absolutely love these experiments!
I am going to host one where I live, in our Galleria!
You are my inspiration!!
Very interesting and fun project… two thoughts:
First, It would be cool though if the quality of the video was better. The herky-jerky manner of the YouTubes sorta defeats the purpose. The point, after all, is the marked contrast between those who freeze and those not in on it.
Second, the cynical bastard part of me thinks it would be instructive (and fun!) if one of these could be executed somewhere in a particularly christianoid part of America (the deep south? Kansas?). The cries of “it’s the rapture! Praise be!” would underscore the delusional nature of a hopefully receding brand of belief that has been too harmful lately. I haven’t read enough about the purpose of these freezes to know if there is a larger point to be made but if there is, this might be one.
Otherwise, well done!
I love your idea!!!
Greetings from chile.
Rodrigo.
hey! i like this! it’s fascinating!! when can i join in Belgium :p haha greetings, liesbeth XxX
absolutely amazing!
I’d really love to freeze one of the busiest stations in the world, the Shibuya station in Tokyo.It will be massively interesting and thrilling if I could just stop that hectic atmosphere for a minute!
Freeze in Lithuania:
http://www.lrytas.lt/videonews/?id=12044814951202899839&sk=6
Am I the only one who finds this entirely uninspired? I hope these people are at least using their frozen time to come up with better ideas.
We just had a short one here in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, Canada! :)
Wow, this was just amazing. Kudos to the people who participated, they really did a great job holding their poses! This was so interesting, and the global response is phenomenal!
I think it’s great that people are able to do this. I don’t know what the overall purpose is, but I do know one thing… Imagine if a group such as this can work together in unison to remain still in a crowd, what then could we do as a whole if we set our minds to it? ANYTHING!.
Bravo on the work guys. Bravo indeed.
HI just to let you know thanks to your 1st kick, i organized alone a freezing in CENTRal station in Brussels capital of europe…360 people came to poetically freeze.it was a great moment. the video this week.
fabrice
hi, there, I saw your video yesterday nigth and its awesome, i want to do it here in Bogota, colombia can you help me with the scheme or logistic you used so i can gather the people. thanks And ill wait for your answer contact my at lbcu@hotmail.com
Fantastic original and fantastic responses. It’s interesting viewing all of these together, and makes clear what works well and less well. In general, poses that are actually caught in the middle of an action (mid-stride, laughing at a friend, drinking, kissing, etc) are much more interesting than being frozen simply standing in place, which many people were (although it does seem as though there are far more people drinking and kissing than you would catch in any real snapshot in time in these public places…!).
There’s also some interesting variety with respect to the ratio of participants to passersby. Clearly, the effect is much more impressive when you have more participants, and if they are frozen in an area that people actually have to walk through, rather than being able to walk around. Also, one of the reasons the original is so good aside from the above points is that they had just a few discreet camera operators, instead of a dozen guys milling all around inside everyone else’s picture.
Great work everyone, and here’s to IE!
did you already get any video from Hong Kong?
is there an edinburgh improv group? Please contact me if so - I want to join!
The freeze displays is used in developmental research on infancy. Go to my website and see how infants reaction to their mother holding a “still-face”. As with the adults in Grand Central the infants and toddlers try to make sense of what is going on.
Here’s a better link for Lithuania, with a youtube video embedded:
http://www.blogas.lt/EziukasVilniuje/354468/flashmobo-vilnius-freeze-foto-ir-video.html
Here’s a link to one in Belgium!
http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=2SHjpf8aC6A
I updated the post to reflect all of the additional freezes, and I decided to just post links rather than YouTube videos. The 30 videos on one page were making my computer freak out.
Hello from Atlanta!
We had a BLAST in Atlanta ! Really, really interesting how much fun we had - it was totally out of proportion for how much effort it was. After all, how much work is it to be still for five minutes!?!
We in Atlanta were slightly hampered by the Georgia Department of Transportation deciding to shut down access on an Interstate Highway (of all places) just about an hour before several folks, including our videographers, could drive to our location. (Sorry, Kim!)
As a result, I think the only surviving video is one that I happened to make using my snap-n-shoot camera. The most unfortunate aspect of the video is that I set up my camera . . .and then I FROZE! So, what you mainly have is video of me, who is (not) cleaning up the Coke that I spilled!
There are several Agents shown in the background. After about a minute and 15 seconds, you can see a civilian, walking from right to left, who joins a group of agents and freezes for a while. At about 3 minutes and 30 seconds, a civilian observer feels compelled to give a shout-out to our Atlantic Station crowd!
After the freeze you see one of the other Agents come over and help me to pick up my Coke cup.
Then my sons, Agent Keye West and Agent Estevan come to help me clean up. They were just off to the right of the camera view, and were holding one of those string-sculpture things, a Cat’s Cradle. They said that while they were frozen a civilian lady came by, pointed to one string and said, “If you pull the string here it will make a knot.” No response from them. “If you pull the string here it will make a knot.” No response from them. Then she poked them in the arm, but they didn’t move!
Here’s the vid:
http://www.filemojo.com/l.php?flink=0205337106987521&fx=
YOU ROCK, BETHESDA!
Agent Jokester
cool
Here’s a link to the news story I wrote about the one in Waterloo for the Waterloo Region Record. There is a video linked from the article.
Freeze, this is a prank TheRecord.com 29 Feb 2008
Kuala Lumpur,malaysia frozen 30march 2008
from agent ezran
36h before the launch of the Freeze in Paris, we have around 2500 registred members… It’s gonna be wild
These last weeks we planned to play a giant “1, 2, 3, Soleil!”. Don’t know the name in english but it’s a game where you have to freeze each time when a leader counts up to three. Rest of the time you try to reach him as quickly as possible…
When we saw the Grand central video, we all thought “that’s THE idea”.
Two weeks later we did it. We were 70 of us in our small city (20 000 people) Lannion in Brittany, France. Great time.
http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=x_1JCeVJMJk
ready for the worlwide one.
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN did yesterday at 1:10
There was one Freeze event yesterday in Shanghai.
Check out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EZz02eAsOA&eurl=http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=10196373412
http://www.catshanghai.com/blog/2008/03/08/flash-mob-hits-shanghai/
facebook event
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=10196373412&ref=mf
More videos of the event should be uploaded soon.
There was also an freeze event at Nanjing Lu, Shanghai, China.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ArpFAnk6Gs
24h before the french final cut : here the official trailer produced by Awak’iT
http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=vg9xyUEZIrk
Hi,
This is the Official Video of the Freeze in Paris with more than 3000 people.
Will probably make a longer film as we had maore than 20 cameraman…
http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=qtUNj2BNTsU
Love this concept.
If everyone could even do this individually, even if just in their mind stress levels and diseases would dramatically drop.
Hi, I like the idea.
I feel inspired to do it in my city:
Santiago - Chile.
Excellent work!
It’s not “Miami, Ohio”. It’s “Miami University, Oxford, Ohio”.
There are towns named Miami in this world, but that is not one of them.
That said — Go, MU!
@Maureen - thanks. I actually assumed it was in Florida at first based on the YouTube title. Then I noticed there was snow on the ground.
There was one by students at St. Andrews University, St. Andrews (Scotland, UK)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7295327.stm
Hey, this is great! Congratulations…
we would love to do it in portugal as well….how can we sign up?
You may have forgotten Zurich/Switzerland
http://www.20min.ch/news/zuerich/story/27170967
hey guys were going to have a freeze in bogota, on april 5, 4 pm Ill be posting videos and photos, wish me luck!
Some students of the “Simon Bolivar” University, here in Caracas (Venezuela) did it too. Here is a link for the youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVOvAhaC0n4
We had an awesome twin freeze in Zurich and Lausanne last Saturday…
http://www.20min.ch/news/zuerich/story/27170967
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpsG4KTvEv0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClTVATDGBXk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cuyZ1f_32Y
http://youtube.com/watch?v=jKLyQIb9nFU
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Iq-dqH7Go-Y
http://youtube.com/watch?v=m9O6BkXWyp8
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4q6hq_freeze-de-lausanne-beautiful-day_eventsdailymotion.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-crRffm2BQg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93IqVyf5kfI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPj8HQqlnk8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QNo5JwhX-M
It was great! <3
About the grand central freeze thing. Some of the kids at me school including myself have thought of a funny idea to pause for a few minutes at our school. We need to get more people to agree.
En Barcelona este día 21 de Marzo a las 15:00 en la Plaza Real.
http://santuarioatziluth.blogspot.com/2008/03/barcelona-freeze-21-marzo_6014.html
just yesterday - prague, czech republic http://www.flash-mob.cz .. but that was a poor one imho
Hi! we are making our own freeze in Barcelona, we really loved the Grand Central one and hope this one turns out great! we will post the video on you tube right after. It will be march 21st, Plaza real in Barcelona. Cheers!
Prague Czech Republic - Yesterday. Almost 1500 people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35BE_Cj4ss0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwTBLD5A1iE
http://www.novinky.cz/clanek/135649-video-ve-vestibulu-metra-zmrzly-stovky-lidi.html
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ML7pCjPTJ18
http://youtube.com/watch?v=1P7fzhulGtg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZALrVQGNXc
Hey!
The seniors at my school did this a couple weeks ago.
Senior Freeze: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koV8uUyRXxE
Cathedral Catholic High School
San Diego, CA
You guys are amazing. Keep up the brilliant and hilarious pranking!
On April 15th, at precisely, there wille be a big Freeze in Toulouse, France. Check out the facebook group !
;-)
was in the BH zurich freeze, awesome! am organizing one in Beirut…Keep IMPROVing..cheers
1. plz add Lausanne, Switzerland
http://youtube.com/watch?v=3d0o7fMXFMg — official video
2. plz add Berne, Switzerland (a little bit different…wow!!!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGNGgnE29Y8
we’re already planning the next mission…sth different that has never been done before….
finally, witzerland is moving! I love you IE! ;)
I think that the Grand Central Freeze was the most amazing thing! It was like a work of living art and seemed to have a big impact on viewers.
you all guys are wonderful
There was also one in Nice, French Riviera, France
Here’s a better video for the freeze at Montreal ::
http://youtube.com/watch?v=29YMw6_JQh4
Hey, i love these freeze things, i think they are awesome….i would love to conduct one in Melbourne Australia.
There’s one in Quebec City on March 27th
thats going to happen in Toulouse , France too on april 15th. there is a group created in facebook and every body is informed by that ^^ i hope itll work ^^
“ON TUESDAY, APRIL 15TH AT PRECISELY 6:30 PM, we will be aiming to create a mass freeze for 3-5 minutes. That is going to happen at PLACE DU CAPITOLE in Toulouse.
For those who arent in the know about freezing… Its simple, you just stand still, holding your pose whatever you were doing when the mass freeze starts… should that be kissing your girlfriend/boyfriend or scratching your arse ;)”
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8488759593
Yesterday we had 2 freezes in Mexico City:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GlxWuekotI
Love the freeze prank…!
Wondered if it was possible to get agents from around the world to freeze in every capital at the same time, in spite of time differences. This could be cool and really make people think.
It is just a thought…
We’ll be freezing time from 12:04 to 12:07 in Terell Mall at Washington State University!
There will be a freeze in Queen Street Shopping Mall in Brisbane too on April Fools Dat. http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=10168451902
Just found out about it and it looks like it’ll be awesome!
Here is another one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiqea9uechs
that was the University of Minnesota Freeze
This is pretty interesting and cool.
I live in Orlando, FL. You should come here and do this at Disney World. That is the perfect place for some thing like this.
There was also one in Times Square, HONGKONG
Quebec City, Canada, tonight, at 7h30 EST timezone.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=9066548109
there was also the woodlands, texas
March 27, 2008 … Quebec City, Canada, Place Laurier Shopping Mall Centre (Biggest one in Eastern Canada) 300 ppl and more did it!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=z9by9180qx4
The World Needs You To Descend on Washington D.C.
there was one in luxembourg. you can see it on youtube XD
And in LUXEMBOURG on March 15th!
this is absolutely AMAZING!!! I totally love this concept and seeing people react is pretty much the best part!!! Keep up the good work everyone!
University of Minnesota Freeze
Article
http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2008/03/07/72166035
Video
http://www.mndaily.com/loadAV.php?mult_id=363
malaysia, kuala lumpur
30march frozen..
video in proses.. thanks..
There was also one in Times Square, Hong Kong SAR, China
date: 20/3/2008
youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IWIDu0b3hs
There was one in Quebec, Canada also!
Video available on YouTube…
We’ve done it in Coimbra, Portugal too :D It was great!
We just had a Freeze in Århus, Denmark
would like to participate in any future events.. what a great thing. you are amazing. I live in Vancouver BC but have lived in several US states as well
Freeze event in the main entrance of Aupark Shopping Center, in Bratislava, Slovakia.
Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo-8r1KsIAQ
Best regards! :)
There was also one in Florence, Italy.
This is the video: http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=HdlBTShEyEs
Sorry, Freeze in Florence was yesterday April 1st, 2008
Bye
Just had one in Brisbane, Australia on April 1st.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKJrjQBSD84
Another city joins the freeze:
on April 1st, a downtown square (Namesti Svobody) froze in Brno, Czech Republic. A video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt9HPwGuZOs
oh, and btw: the correct spelling of “Prague, Czech Republic” is like that, not “Prauge” (but that’s just my nitpicking).
You there! Freeze! ;)
we did the fist In bogota, Colombia It was good but we had few people, we are going to make another one. ill upload video and pictures soon
video is done..
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
klcc shopping center 30march2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwqIOGSJcaE
Yay, comments are working again!
The freeze in Calgary, Canada happened this past Saturday. The full text report is still in the works, but the main video and agent interviews video are both done.
Main video: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh-rEwFo-Hs
reference : http://paepae.exteen.com/20080407/20-freeze-5/page/1
Freeze Siam Center, Bangkok, Thailand
20 April 2008
Mission Briefing 15:00 (+7 GMT)
Mission Start 16:00 (+7 GMT) or later
Place of mission :
Siam BTS Sky train Station between Siam Center and Siam Paragon
If has acident move to
Front of MBK Shopping mall
National Stadium BTS Sky train Station between MBK Shopping mall and Siam Discovery.
Freeze Atocha Station, Madrid, Spain
07 April 2008
Mission Briefing 20:00 (+1 GMT)
Mission Start 20:30 (+1 GMT)
Videos: http://www.adn.es/ciudadanos/20080407/VID-0095-madrid-atocha-frozen.html
http://es.youtube.com/results?search_type=search_videos&search_query=congelados+atocha&search_sort=relevance&search_category=0&page=
Upcoming: Bangkok, Thailand - 20 April 2008
Detail: http://paepae.exteen.com/20080407/20-freeze-5 (Thai)
Oops! Just see KnoxPix already posted one.
Sorry for duplicated posts :-/
They are planning one in Ames,IA on this Saturday April 12th during their veisha festival on central campus