There has been lots of activity on our Improv Everywhere Global site the past few weeks. The Mexico City group Desordinarios staged a mission called “Train Rain.” Around twenty agents rode Mexico City’s metro wearing rain gear and holding umbrellas.

Other recent missions:

**Boston SOS held a protest to protest protesting.

**Plan B in Minnesota staged their version of our old Ted’s Birthday mission.

**Suddenly Midwest in Kansas City staged their version of The Moebius.

**Scene Diego put a giant button in a park labeled “Do Not Push.” The planted agents began to dance whenever the button was pushed.

**The DC Defenestrators have been busy down in our nation’s capital. They staged a concert on the mall using rock band instruments and created a fake celebrity for a day.

**Improv Jakarta had their first mission over in Indonesia, causing random folks to look up into the sky.

**A couple of Improv Everywhere agents from New York are traveling to Manchester, England next week to assist with an Improv Manchester mission at the Futuresonic conference. The event will be at 9 AM on Thursday, May 1. Here is the facebook invite.

Interactive Map of Freeze Events

The “freeze” craze started by our Frozen Grand Central mission has now reached 70 cities in 34 countries and 6 continents (come on Antarctica, get with the program!) Agent Piskvor from Prague made a very cool map showing the locations of all the freeze missions. It’s a Google Map, so you can interact with it and click through to see the video for each city.

A couple of recent freezes of note include the first freeze in the Middle East:

Beirut, Lebanon

…and a freeze in Hong Kong where legislators and councilors from the local government participated.

Frozen Hong Kong, Councilors Version

The IE Global group based in Prague turned a subway car into a living room this past weekend. Here’s their report and video:

- Mission: Travel first class … on the subway!
- When: April 4th, 2008, from 5pm onwards
- Where: Prague subway system (eastbound yellow line)
- Agents: 12

On Friday, April 4th, the commuters on one of the trains were rather surprised when a girl has boarded a train, carrying a rug, and spread it out on the floor. Imagine their shock at the next station, where two guys brought in a large armchair, on the following stations accompanied by a coatrack, table, antique telephone, slippers, and a flower in a vase.

This was just the set-up. At Jinonice, some six stations from the start, a dressed-up man came in, put his coat and umbrella at the rack, sat down in the armchair and made himself comfortable: he loosened his tie, removed his shoes and put on the slippers, picked up a magazine and started reading.

Get involved in your local area at Improv Everywhere Global

Roundup on the latest activity at IE Global:

**The Boston Society of Spontaneity created a line of “human dominoes” at South Station.

**Mission:Singapore had an artist pretend to paint on a plain white canvas.

**GuerilLA had folks who seemed like strangers spontaneously come together for a game of Follow The Leader at the Getty Center

**The Global Freeze Phenomenon continues. We have a list of all 52 global freezes (in 27 different countries.) The latest freezes in Brussels and Beijing were covered by CNN.

Get involved in your local area at Improv Everywhere Global.

There are a few new global missions to report from groups organized on our IE Global site:

• The folks from Scene Diego gave out coupons for “free massages” in the (always free) massage chairs at a Sharper Image in Philadelphia.
• The Boston Society of Spontaneity had a beach party in and around their subway.
• IE Global agents in Greece fell asleep together in a mall.

In the meantime the global freeze phenomenon continues. New freezes have taken place in Barcelona, Paris, Shanghai, and Prague. We’ve been keeping a comprehensive list of all of the freeze missions. The current count is 40 events in 22 different countries.

We’ve also received a bit of recent press. We were featured on German television, Al Jazeera English, and PRI’s Fair Game.

A few new missions to report from our IE Global site. The first is from Scene Diego, the local IE Global group out in San Diego, CA. They got 7 agents to infiltrate a Starbucks and then fall asleep.

(youtube link)

The IE Global group in Singapore also staged a “sleeping in public” mission, getting a dozen or so agents to fall asleep by a public fountain.

(youtube link)

Finally, one more from Scene Diego, 70 agents use a “banana phone” in a San Diego mall.

(youtube link)

Thanks to Global Agent J.A. Riley from Atlanta for designing the new Improv Everywhere Global graphic, seen above.

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.

The local IE Global group in Singapore has completed their first mission.

They report:

The objective of the mission was pretty simple, point your phones up at the big giant red lantern and keep looking up for 5 minutes. Planning missions in Singapore prove to be a difficult task due to the potential legal issues. We have a law here that prevents us from gathering in groups larger than 4 people.

(youtube video)

Get involved in your area at Improv Everywhere Global.

Mieli Valta, the local IE Global group in Helsinki, Finland, pulled off a cool mission on Valentine’s day.

They report:

To celebrate Valentines Day, a small group of us spent a romantic moment in Nordea Bank Hakaniemi. Videotaping in a bank proved difficult but we managed to capture a little something, happy valentines!

(youtube video)

Get involved in your area at Improv Everywhere Global.

This past Saturday “frozen in time” missions happened in both London and Toronto. They were inspired by our Frozen Grand Central mission and organized via Improv Everywhere Global. The idea seems to be spreading like wildfire, as other groups in other towns are organizing similar events as well on IE Global.

The London event took place in Trafalgar Square and had an estimated 1,000 participants.

(youtube video) (official video from the organizers coming soon.)

The Toronto event took place at one of Canada’s busiest shopping malls and was covered by CBC news.

(youtube video)

There was also another London event last week in Waterloo Station:

(youtube video)

Get involved in your area at Improv Everywhere Global.