SXSW 2012 - Frosting the Law: Building a Safe Prank Group

Frosting the Law: Building a Safe Prank Group
Event	Interactive 2011
Format	Dual
Organizer	Jeff Moriarty – Improv Media
Description	Public pranks and flashmobs range from epic dance arrangements to little in-jokes. They can cheer people up, get attention, promote an idea, be a hell of a lot of fun... and also get you into lots of trouble. Learning from groups like Improv Everywhere and pranksters like Rob Cockerham we built a prank group in a city with no provable sense of humor: Phoenix, Arizona. We’ve had some good success and pretty stupid screw ups. We’ve almost been arrested, and had plenty (often too much) attention from the mainstream press. We’ll give you all of our tips and history, what worked and what didn’t, what we wanted to do and what fell short. We want you to be able to leave and try things in your own stomping ground. This is a social, creative, chaotic, fun way to connect with people and every city should have groups doing shenanigans. It makes the world so much more interesting.
Questions Answered	What are different types of pranks, and what are good examples of each? How do you build a team of covert operatives with the right skills and motivations? How can you promote an event without alerting the media (any more than you want to)? What laws have we run into trouble with, and how did we handle them? How to handle being in trouble over an event?
Level	Intermediate
Category	Social Issues
Tags	flashmob, legal, pranks

Frosting the Law: Building a Safe Prank Group