Becoming Legends 23

Photo from Wiki Bruce

  With a viral event most shows or big budget movies that the event is for have lots of history and a large fan base. They also have lots of time to plan and build demand for a product.

Alcatraz has only been on screens for a few weeks and although I'm sure there is plenty of marketing from Fox, I was personally dubious about an event for something that is only a few weeks old.



However last night it seems that Alcatraz already has a healthy fan base, in San Francisco at least, who are prepared to turn out for an event that has no details other than bring a torch and warm clothing !

I am in the UK and I knew it would be a long day and night as the event wasn't due to start until 3 am ! So I started off the day by creating a search on Twitter for simply "Alcatraz" I had no idea what I would get, but the vast majority of tweets, which came in thick and fast, were for the TV show.



Wiki Bruce Alcatraz Landing



During the day there wasn't much variation apart from a small rise in tourist tweets when the west coast tourists were waking up.

The next thing I did after setting up the search was to create a post on this blog as the time and place for people to be met was announced, again only a few short hours of notice for this event.

As the day went by a few people posted messages saying they were going to the event, one person even flying to SF just for the event.

Wiki Bruce Filming Setup

I started off a twitter list for people attending and then sat back and waited. Around 5pm pst people started tweeting to say they were making their way to the event location on pier 33 and eventually we heard that there was a queue forming with more people arriving. We found lots more names from people in that queue and built up the twitter list.

Then some more inevitable waiting, but also some reports of legal release forms being signed as filming would be taking place and also people being split into coloured teams.

@_june - Badge

Badges were handed out with appropriate Alcatraz TV series wording on them, and they were sent onto the boat and sent off to the island.

@MrJudkins - Doc Soto Briefing

On the journey over reports came in of Doc Soto gaiving a briefing via a video message. @MrJudkins posted The video intro by Doc Soto on the ferry explained that we'll be investigating a legend of an otherwise unknown escape...

After arriving on the island things get a little more sketchy, as people were concentrating on the game that was afoot. We got reports of scary doctors and puzzles to be solved.


@MrJudkins - Creepy Doctor



This is the main description of what was happening that was ent after the event - "We had to try & locate proof of a inmate who was rumored to have escaped but no records remain...", "Practically, that meant traveling to specific parts of the prison to fill in the blanks of a clue sheet"

  

@StimpDawg - The Prize

 

This is the prize that was handed out to the participants, a Legends of Alcatraz t-shirt, and a USP Alcatraz cup.



After the games had finished and prfesumably people had become legends, the temporary inmates were free to wander around the cells and lots of pictures from the prison were posted.



@_June photo of @MrJudkins



I'm looking forward to writeups of the event being posted from people that attended along with videos and more pictures. As soon as we know of any that are available we will post the links here.

All it remains for me to say is a big thanks to all the people that were at the event and tweeting back information and to everyone that joined along in the comments and online to once again make a local event seem more global.