Covering No Pants Day

Posted on January 11, 2010 by Shawn Du'Mmett

Why would thousands of people take off their pants in the bitter winter and ride the New York subway?

… For fun – Watching the shocked and stunned reactions of the onlookers.

Well yesterday, January 10th, was the ninth annual NYC ‘No Pants Day’.

Isn’t it interesting that so many people can be mobilised together just for fun. This particular one was organised by a group called Improv Everywhere and crowds of people joined together at Foley Square and other points in Queens and Brooklyn to prepare (undress) ready for the journey.

The goal? To cause “scenes of chaos and joy in public places”. The one rule that makes it quite spooky for the unsuspecting onlooker is that each participants is in no way meant to acknowledge each other and if questioned for the lack of coverage must just answer that they forget them in the morning.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF1tdQLzWmc

A version of No Pants Day is The No Pants Subway Ride, an annual event organized by New York City prank collective Improv Everywhere. In this event, members of the group enter a subway car at consecutive stops without pants in the middle of winter. Participants pretend that they do not know each other and if asked, claim that they simply “forgot” their pants. The first No Pants Subway Ride took place in 2002 with seven riders and has grown exponentially each year. In 2009 over 1,200 people participated in New York and over 1,000 more participated in 21 other cities around the world. The fact that the No Pants Subway Ride has become a global event with multiple cities participating on the same day has led to its confusion with No Pants Day

Not just New York – Chicago held their own

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83r-QLaWGQ8&NR=1

Unedited B-Roll Video of Chicago’s Participation in No-Pants 2010.
Shot quickly on my iPhone, so obviously not much regards to production value. Was too busy taking the event in to do any documenting video much justice… I just wanted something to remember the event by!
But here are various shots from the day. Sorry for the crappy quality!
============== D E T A I L S ==============
Riders of the red line today may have been in for an interesting surprise.
A group of approximately 150 Chicagoans took part in the annual “No Pants” train ride this afternoon, along with 44 other cities in 16 countries worldwide.
Chicagoans met just off of the Granville red line stop, braving 10°F weather for this stunt. Participants took off their pants en route to the Roosevelt stop, hopping on different trains during stops along the way, confusing many red line riders.
This is Chicago’s third year participating in the annual event which had its beginning nine years ago in New York under a group called “Improv Everywhere”.

The practice is now spreading to other countries – Well Lisbon at least is nice and warm right now.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md2dzqM3ps0

No Pants in Lisbon’s subway! Over a hundred people dropped their pants on the green line of Lisbon’s subway. There were young and less young people but all of us had real “pantless” fun 🙂 more info at http://improvlisboa.blogspot.com/

Also in Barcelona…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOVdx5caTV0

News coverage of the event:

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