Original Music and Sound Design: Agent Walker
Digital Video: Agent JimCo
Digital Photography: Agents Nicholson, Beale
Produced by: Agent Biederman
edited by: Matt Adams
For The Mp3 Experiment San Francisco, around 400 people downloaded the same mp3, pressed play at the same time, and had a blast together on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in Mission Dolores Park. We partnered with Yahoo! to transform The Mp3 Experiment into a full-on North American tour; we started with the New York event, and then made stops in Toronto, San Francisco, and Chicago. You can see a highlight video of the entire tour here.
Below is the mission report for the San Francisco event. Enjoy!


After synchronizing their watches and downloading the mp3 from our website, at exactly 2:00 PM, everyone pressed play together. Of all the stops on the tour, San Francisco had the most non-participants in the park, which made it all the more fun. While The Mp3 Experiment is primarily about those participating having fun with each other, it’s always a nice bonus to confuse the hell out of people who happen upon it. At least one of those people chose to jump in and participate anyway. Even though he didn’t have headphones he followed along with the crowd anyway and was luckily wearing red.

Guy who joined in spontaneously

A group of picnickers found themselves in the middle of the experiment

Walking in a straight line




A guy gives a high five to some folks who were shooting a film in the park. They took a break from their film and started shooting us. Sorry we interrupted you guys!

A dog is mobbed with hugs!





“Human Twister” was next: “Left Hand Red Head!”






The Red/Yellow army





One guy had an inflatable parrot as his weapon

20-feet apart

The battle begins!




The carnage!

After the battle was over, participants relaxed on the ground as Steve’s half-brother Mark led them through some ridiculous meditation exercises.

Girl: Everyone pick up balloon pieces!
Guy: (rolling eyes) Yeah, it’s San Francisco!
Second Girl: Yeah, it’s the Earth.
Folks lingered and enjoyed the rest of the gorgeous day in the park. Our first trip to San Francisco was a total blast and we hope we can come back again soon!

Thanks again to Yahoo! for embracing our mission and making this tour possible. Be sure to see our reports on the other three cities:
OTHER RESOURCES:
PHOTOS
Agent Beale’s Flickr set
Agent Nicholson’s Highlight Flickr Set
Agent Nicholson’s Full Flickr Set
AUDIO
You can download some of the songs from The Mp3 Experiment on Agent Walker’s MySpace page.
AGENT REPORTS
Check out first hand reports from participants and links to their own flickr sets and blog posts on Recap Page. Add your own report if you were there.
HIRE US
We have also toured The Mp3 Experiment around the world to places like Berlin, Germany and Adelaide, Australia. If you’re part of an organization (festival, university, arts group) that is interested in commissioning an Mp3 Experiment, get in touch via our contact form.
Argh. If I didn’t already have something planned for that day, i’d have gone. Looks like i’ll just have to wait until next year.
MP3 Experiment in SF was so much FUN! Totally recommend it to everyone.
Thanks to Agent Todd (and Yahoo!) for bringing the MP3 Experiment to Baghdad by the Bay.
Wow I would have gone but the Marines had first dibs on me that weekend. Looked like great fun. I was so disappointed that I couldn’t be there for the first time you guys came to my home town all the way from the east coast :'(
Come back soon! (or else!)
Thanks so much for doing this in SF, I had a great time.
OMG, i got in the video for like 3 seconds, awesome!
I would *love* a transcript of Steve’s comments…esp. the last part – maybe it was his brother “Mark” – and the bit about meditation…omg, that was *hilarious*…..
There’s NO WAY that was only 400 people! From the overhead shot, it looks a lot closer to 600-700.
Will you guys ever be releasing a longer video of the event? I’m a little disappointed that we don’t get to see any footage of the tetris blocks or the triangle game or attacker/defender game. I think all of those would look pretty cool from above!
Hell a full uncut 45 minute video from the helicopter just to watch and relive the event would be absolutely spectacular!
Hah, Someone even went in their fursuit. That is Awesome. This whole experiment thing looks cool, any chance of it moving to other countries? Australia, for instance? -grin-
I’m going to be attending collage in San Francisco, so you guys better keep this up until I get there, looks like TONS of fun!
Thanks Yahoo for getting involved (but not making it ‘corporate’)…. the helicopter shots couldn’t be cheap.
i didn’t even know this was happening. i’ve been wanting to do one of these for a while and feel sorry i was left out. of course i would have had a hard time choosing between this and the hardly strictly bluegrass festival i attended that day, but more than likely this would have won. please come back. i love balloons, parks, freeze tag and omnipotent voices.
WOW! Another successful experiment. Still hoping for you to visit Los Angeles… Only suggestion as to why you had 2 people show up in animal costumes is that they listened to the file before the game started (is this cheating?) and were trying to help with the “Hug an animal” step.
KEEP IT UP!
I live nearby, and wondered why the hell that helicopter was hovering over the park for SO LONG. Mega protest? I wandered out to see what was up. Imagine my surprise!
IE rocks. More SF events please!
If San Francisco is supposed to be such a peace loving city, why is it that all these type of “events” degrade to some type of battle or war or fight? Yes. I live in SF.
I really wish I lived in a big city so that I could participate!
Perhaps next time you could come to Boston? It’s the closest city to where I live.
In any event,keep it up with the awesome videos!