In this ongoing series of spontaneous creative happenings that are attracted to the public stage that is the urban square, 1500 students gathered in Place Ladeuzeplein, Leuven, Belgium to create their own instantaneous Bellagio Fountain… out of the infamous Coke and mentos, thus breaking the world record for… most mento-coke fountains at once.

Ok, it’s not the kind of thing that jives with the Story of Stuff, but whoever has a problem with it should take it up with the Committee for the

read more…

What’s the so called Committee for the Termination of National Apathy to do to achieve its mission of relieving anxiety and stress? A national pillow fight of course!

Some 300 people celebrated the third annual Roman Pillow Fight on Sunday, April 27, 2008 in Piazza Santa Maria in the Trastevere neighborhood of Rome, simultaneously commencing massive pillow action at precisely 6 pm when the piazza’s clock tower began to chime.

It’s one of those ‘you had to be there’ events, but you can get a

read more…

Here’s a much more conscientious alternative to the Hummer limousine (no, not a hybrid Hummer limousine)... Prague’s tram-based nightclub, known as Tramix. Yes, that’s a roving streetcar dance party with music, disco lighting and two bars, bringing new meaning to the term bar hopping.

The nightclub streetcar circuits the Czech capital late at night once a month. What’s the big deal? From an experience economy point of view, one of the event’s organizers, Honza Komarek, states it best, “When

read more…

This is another one of those ‘it was just a matter of time’ things…

We’ve gone over how to crowdsource places and scenes, but not events.  Well, here’s a real world example in Scotland…

The Tennent’s Mutual is a music festival with a quarter of a million $ budget (this can obviously be scaled smaller or larger depending on your market)... that its founders will allow music lovers to “shape, create and dictate gig provision - from selecting artists and debating locations to calling the shots

read more…

You may think the most popular, buzz-inducing events that creatives flock to are sponsored by city or arts-related organizations with budgets, but not so. Remember, creatives are attracted to natural cultural districts, which in turn consist of third places, events and scenes sourced by individuals.

A case in point - let’s look at the ongoing events attracting creatives in Washington DC:

Pecha Kucha - The first Thursday of the month, the DC version of this nationwide design presentation (a

read more…

How important is live music to the city of Austin? How many cities do you know of that have a Live Music Task Force? Not only that, the city-funded group won’t consist of the usual suspect government bureaucrats, but local musicians, music venue owners and regular music-loving Austin residents - all deciding how to spend the government’s money to keep Austin’s Live Music Capital of the World reputation thriving.

The final report will come in October, but here are the four areas they’re

read more…

We all know how important music and events are to local culture, but what about to the local economy? The City of Austin wanted to find out what kind of $ impact its annual SXSW (South by Southwest) music, film and interactive festival provided and got their answer: $95 million.

Conducted by Angelou Economics, the $95 million figure that the festival was calculated to have brought to Austin’s local economy in 2007 was double that of estimates by the Austin Convention and Visitor’s Bureau,

read more…

In 2003, two employees of Klein-Dytham Architecture (KDa) in Tokyo felt there was a profound need for a place that young creatives could socialize, network and present their work publicly. Thus was born Pecha Kucha Night, which has since spread to 103 cities around the world.

Each month a group of designers, creatives, artists meet in, well, a creative space to view peer presentations of their work. Ah, but what makes it all so compelling is that ego is factored out of the equation - each

read more…

Cities love having an event followed by the sentence, “Only in ____”, even if it’s just for that year. It provides them with a unique cultural identity that sets them apart from every city in the world, such as the Running of the Bulls, only in Pamplona.

Speaking of which, who knows if that was part of the inspiration behind Crashed Ice, where four gutsy padded-up skaters fight through elements of roller derby, hockey and the bobsled as they race close to 40-miles an hour on a one-third

read more…

Every district wants a music scene, but not every district has one. Creative class author Richard Florida, a music fan to the nth degree, is spending a lot of research time providing the answers why, the first findings of which can be found in his recent report, Music Clusters: A Preliminary Analysis.

First of all, one needs to understand that only this with music as primary employment are defined in this study, not self-employed musicians, secondary musicians (in addition to their day job),

read more…