Photo by Katie Sokoler

The 9th Annual No Pants Subway Ride went off without a hitch today in New York. It’s tough to count, but we’re guessing we had around 3,000 participants. Riders met at meeting points spread out all over the city and converged on Union Square. The high was 28 degrees. There were also No Pants rides in 43 other cities around the world in 16 countries!

Photos:

-Agent Sokoler’s Set (Downtown)
-Agent Rosmarin’s set (Downtown)
-Agent Zapata’s Set (Downtown)
-Agent Hambly’s Set (Central Park)
-Agent Chigirev’s Set (Central Park)
-Agent Fountain’s Set (Prospect Park)
-Agent Scott’s Set (Astoria)
-Agent Sermoneta’s Set (Flushing)
-Metromix’s Set (Bushwick)

The official video should be ready in a week. For now, enjoy videos from year’s past!

No Pants 2009

No Pants 2008

No Pants 2002 (the first year!)

Complete history of The No Pants! Subway Ride with videos of past years

Thanks to everyone who came out to participate! If this was your first event, make sure you are on the NY Agents mailing list so you’ll find out about upcoming missions. Subscribe to our RSS feed to stay up to date on everything Improv Everywhere. You can also join our Facebook Page and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

No Pants 2010 Subway Ride Generals
(L-R) Back: Agents Good, Todd, Shafer, Lindquist, Fiedler
Front: Agents Scordelis, Lathan, Ace$Thugg, Reeves
photo by Brian Fountain

No Pants 2010 Buenos Aires

If you participated in one of the 44 regional No Pants Subway Rides today in 16 countries across the world, leave us an agent report in the comments below letting us know how it went. Post links to any photos and videos from your town’s event as well. Let us know how many people participated and what the temperature was.

If you’re discussing No Pants on twitter, remember to include @improvevery

Also, if you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for our mailing list and subscribe to our RSS feed so you’ll stay updated on future global events like this. You can also join our Facebook Page and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Thanks for participating!

Check out the complete history of The No Pants! Subway Ride with videos of past years

Video from the first No Pants in 2002

The Ninth Annual No Pants Subway Ride is tomorrow in New York City and 42 cities worldwide! There are 15 countries involved this year, including Japan, Argentina, and Sweden. We are expecting a breezy 29 degree day here in New York.

New York City details for No Pants 2010

Details for other cities

Check back here Sunday night and all day Monday for initial reports and photos. We hope to have a video up in a week or so.

Complete history of The No Pants! Subway Ride

Last year’s No Pants Subway Ride

UPDATE: Just added Flushing Meadows Park as a 6th location!

All are invited to participate in the 9th Annual No Pants Subway Ride. The event will take place at 3:00 PM on Sunday, January 10. Everything you need to know is in this post. Please read it carefully!

REQUIREMENTS FOR PARTICIPATION:

1) Willing to take pants off on subway
2) Able to keep a straight face about it

**THIS IS A PARTICIPATORY EVENT. DO NOT SHOW UP UNLESS YOU PLAN TO TAKE YOUR PANTS OFF.**

DETAILS

When: Sunday, January 10 at 3:00 PM, Sharp! (Over by around 5:30)
Where: Six meeting points spread out all over New York City. Details below.
Bring: A backpack and a metro card.
Wear: Normal winter clothes (hat, gloves, etc)
Facebook: You can RSVP to the Facebook Event

Complete logistics below:

HOW IT WORKS

There are six meeting points this year. Take your pick.

Astoria: Meet at Hoyt Playground – Google Map
Downtown Brooklyn: Meet at Prospect Park – Google Map
Downtown Manhattan: Meet at Foley Square – Google Map
Queens: Meet at the Unisphere in Flushing Meadows Park – Google Map
Uptown Manhattan: Meet at the Great Hill in Central Park – Google Map
Williamsburg / Bushwick: Meet at Bushwick Park (AKA Maria Hernandez Park) – Google Map

Everyone should meet at their chosen meeting point at 3 PM. Please be on time. Feel free to be early.

At the meeting points, participants will be organized into groups and assigned a specific train car. Once everyone is divided up we will all head to nearby subway station[s]. Do not talk to others once you enter the subway system. No one knows each other.

Sit in the car as you normally would. Read a magazine or whatever you would normally do. Your team leader will have already divided you into smaller groups, assigning your group a specific stop where you will depants.

As soon as the doors shut at the stop before yours, stand up and take your pants off and put them in your backpack. If you’d like to use a briefcase, purse, grocery bag, or whatever instead of a backpack that’s fine too. If anyone asks you why you’ve removed your pants, tell them that they were “getting uncomfortable” (or something along those lines.)

Exit the train at your assigned stop and stand on the platform, pantless. You will wait on the platform for the next train to arrive. Stay in the exact same place on the platform so you enter the next train in the same car as you exited the last train.

When you enter, act as you normally would. You do not know any of the other pantless riders. If questioned, tell folks that you “forgot to wear pants” and yes you are “a little cold.” Insist that it is a coincidence that others also forgot their pants. Be nice and friendly and normal.

All train routes will converge on Union Square. Your exact route will be explained at the meeting point, and may involve a transfer.

You can wear fun underwear if you like, but nothing that screams out, “I wore this because I’m doing a silly stunt.” Wear two pairs of underwear if it makes you feel more comfortable. Don’t wear a thong or anything else that might offend people. Our aim is to make people laugh, not piss them off.

If you haven’t already, please take a moment to read about previous No Pants! Subway Rides.

Please leave your cameras at home and resist the temptation to snap photos with your iPhone, etc. while the event is happening. Take as many as you like before and after the event, but during the ride we really want people to enjoy the experience of participating rather than documenting. It detracts from the mission if everyone is taking photos of each other rather than keeping a straight face. Don’t worry, we have photographers assigned to every meeting point who will take great photos.

This is always a blast, and we look forward to seeing you there. You may bring along friends if you like, but make sure they get a chance to read all of these instructions.

See you on the 10th!

(Information for participating in other cities is here.)

Be aware that by participating, you recognize that Improv Everywhere is not liable in the event you are injured, arrested, or worse. By choosing to participate you are still responsible for your actions.

No Pants 2008 in New York

As in years past, there are No Pants Subway Rides happening in cities around the world on January 10, the same day as our annual event in New York. If your town has a subway system or some form of mass transportation (bus? trolley?), then get involved and organize your own ride.

If you want to be the leader for your town’s ride, create a Facebook event and post a link to it in the comments below so we can promote it on this page. Here are all of the cities that currently have rides being organized for this year:

Adelaide
Amsterdam
Atlanta
Barcelona
Berlin
Boston
Brisbane
Buenos Aires
Buffalo
Calgary
Charlotte
Chicago
Cleveland
Dallas | Dallas 2
Denver
Edmonton
Gothenburg
Honolulu
Lisbon
London
Los Angeles
Madrid
Melbourne
Mexico City
Minneapolis
New York
Philadelphia
Phoenix
Pittsburgh
Portland, OR | Portland, OR 2
Salt Lake City
San Diego
San Francisco
Seattle
Stockholm
Sydney
Tokyo
Toronto
Toulouse
Vancouver
Vienna
Warsaw
Washington, DC
Zürich

If you participate in a regional ride and use twitter, tag your posts with #nopants and @improvevery so everyone can follow along with other cities throughout the day.

We will be updating this page with links to any new cities. Leave any corrections or additions in the comments.

video from No Pants 2009

UPDATE:
Details for New York
Details for other Cities

The 9th Annual No Pants! Subway Ride will take place on Sunday, January 10 in New York City. More info with the meeting point and start time will be posted to this site in early January. For now, save the date. You can RSVP on Facebook.

Once again we are encouraging folks in other cities around the world to stage their own No Pants rides on the same day. Here is the list of cities who participated last year. Anyone organizing a regional No Pants event should let us know by leaving a comment on this post along with all of the necessary details. In a few weeks we will publish a list of all participating cities along with links to any Facebook events. Groups have staged the event on trolleys, light rails, and buses in the past, so don’t let a lack of subway system stop you!

If you are unfamiliar with this tradition, you can read the history here: The No Pants Subway Ride.

We’re selling signed copies of our new book Causing a Scene. Author Charlie Todd will sign each book and add any personal message you want. We have a limited number of copies on hand to sign, so order now before they’re gone.

A signed book costs $30 and shipping is free anywhere in the US. (Sorry, we are no longer shipping signed books internationally.) Of course, you can always buy an unsigned copy on Amazon for $13.59 (plus shipping.)

HOW TO ORDER

Use the PayPal “buy now” button below to place your order. There will be a box on the order form where you can write exactly what you want written for the personal message in the book. If you leave this blank, you’ll just get it signed without any personalization.

Signed Copy of Causing a Scene – $30

Orders ship via US Mail. Allow a couple of weeks for delivery. Send us an email if you’d rather pay by check.

Thanks to the over 2,000 people who participated in today’s mission in Brooklyn. If you were there, please leave an Agent Report in the comments. I know there are thousands of funny stories waiting to be told. Also leave links to any photos you might have taken. We will be posting photos from our official photographers later today, and we hope to have our video up in a week or so.

Agent Nicholson’s Photos
Agent Sokoler’s Photos

For those of you who were not there– we passed out over 2,000 “invisible dog” leashes and had everyone go for a nice Sunday walk in Brooklyn. If you were anywhere within a one mile radius of the Bergen St. stop in Cobble Hill today, you would have seen all types of folks very seriously walking their very silly dogs.

The invisible dog toy was invented in the 1970s in the Brooklyn factory that served as our meeting point today. No Longer Empty and The Invisible Dog art space were nice enough to loan us the vintage dogs for an afternoon of fun.

Thanks again to everyone who participated!

We are staging an Mp3 Experiment at the All Points West Festival on Saturday, August 1 in Liberty State Park (a 10-minute ferry ride from Lower Manhattan.) You must be attending the festival (which is a ticketed event) to participate. Come for Improv Everywhere, stay for Tool!

If your festival, school, company, etc, is interested in hiring us to stage an Mp3 Experiment at your event, please get in touch.

We are visiting Cologne and Rotterdam over the next ten days and will be organizing at least one mission in each city. If you live near either city and want to participate, here is the information:

Cologne

Please send an email to christine.nippe@koelnischerkunstverein.de. You will receive a message where and when the action will happen. It’s going to happen on Saturday, July 11. The performance is part of the education programme Open Source/// at Kölnischer Kunstverein.

Rotterdam

Missions will take place between July 13 and 16. To join the missions, apply by becoming member of http://improv010everywhere.hyves.nl/ You will then automatically receive more detailed information about time, date and locations. Or, send an email to improv.rotterdam@gmail.com with ‘request information’ in your header (and you will receive detailed info). We have been invited by The Arts Office Rotterdam, made possible with the support of Your World 2009 (Rotterdam , Youth Capital of Europe 2009).

And if you don’t live anywhere near these cities, but want to invite us to your festival, university, etc., let us know!