WWFM XI – World-Wide Flash Mob
The Fastest 15 minutes in Geocaching
By Sonny and Sandy, of the PodCacher Podcast.
June 7th was another record-breaking experience for flash mob participants. Over 27,000 geocachers gathered at 792 events in 52 countries for this annual event.
WWFM hosts are known for their creativity and quirkiness and this year’s events did not disappoint. Here are some “WWFM snapshots” from around the globe.
Pretoria, South Africa
We had an awesome event blowing bubbles around a giant sculpture of an upside down cow. It was freezing here in Pretoria but geocachers are not put off by a bit of cold weather and we had a super turnout of 35 people. It was great to see some new geocachers attending their first ever event and a Flash Mob at that!
Mikkeli, Finland
During the event the geocachers gathered to the main park of our town to take a football club type of photo – with everyone wearing a red shirt and black pants. All participants were asked to gather to the different parts of the park. When the referee whistled, everyone gathered in front of the main building in the park in three rows and took their places as professional football players in front of the building. After the photos were taken, the referee whistled again and everyone disappeared without saying a word.
Hong Kong
26 geocachers decided to copy Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks at the busiest zebra crossing in Causeway Bay, HK. There were zombies, gymnasts, supermen and women, backwards walkers and couples with their own silly walk. We had to cross 5 times to earn our smiley.
Pennsylvania, United States
Painting it Purple was our theme. Attendees were to dress and accessorize in purple and to bring along a paintbrush with purple ribbon tied to it. When the event began, we started “painting” everything in sight with our paintbrushes. The color purple was chosen because our event was held very near the Relay For Life of Lancaster. After the event, some of the cachers went into the Relay and walked some laps around the track to Celebrate, Remember, and Fight Back against cancer.
Delft, the Netherlands
With pride we would like to report our WWFM XI event, “Applause for Hugo”. Hugo, in this case, is a statue of Hugo the Groot on the central square in Delfs. At 19:00 hours, a lot of people walked up to this statue and gave it a standing ovation.
Oregon, United States
58 people (most on Pool Noodle ponies) rode into the Riverfront Carousel and sang Happy Birthday to the Carousel ponies (who were all wearing party hats for their 13th Birthday party). The Operations Manager was surprised and delighted and really, really wants a geocache there now! He said “it gave him goosebumps seeing us”.
The 10 largest WWFM XI events were all in Germany, each with over 150 participants. The very biggest was in Dortmund with 450 people. The other countries with events over 100 people were Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, The Netherlands, Portugal, France, and Team PodCacher’s San Diego event.
On the other end of the scale, there were actually quite a few with only 2 participants. Events in Poland, Denmark, Portugal, Spain, Indonesia and Greenland.
