Helping LDN get 4sqr badges

It looks like we now have another chance to get the spooky swarm badge this weekend on Sunday. 

The @screamsociety are holding an event on Sunday night at the University Collage London (UCL). One of the original foursquare society guys is helping to organise @davidjlowe who was a big supporter of the #superswarmLDN campaign

So if you like your Sunday nights a little scary then this could be the place.

+ 2 short films by director Dan Brownlie
+ spooky compere Marcus Walters
+ sultry hostess Steph Wayne

All the details are on Eventbrite 

A few hours ago we started seeing a new swarm type badge come in from the far east - The Spooky Swarm Badge, the problem is that it only be issued after 8pm this Friday, Saturday & Sunday. This sent a massive amount of traffic over my way to see if we could get the community moving to achieve this limited swarm badge.  Amongst all that noise then came the megaswarm and epicswarm badge news that was also starting to come in from the far away but more on that later.

I quickly started some communication hoping to catch many of the London crowd before they went home but as we know the social media types have long lunches and leave at 3 (am I allowed to say this).  Anyway after a quick mass tweet out to all the superswarm people we really only managed to get a dozen or so commitments, so best to step back and think.  Thanks to all who commited.

Then I just got a note in from @hardij saying that @jonchoo was having a 30th birthday party in Kings Cross at Camino in Kings Cross on Saturday night at 7pm.  BINGO and both where Superswarm supporters during our #superswarmLDN campaign.  So not only could we get people to a party on Saturday night we would also get the 16 candles badge.  Thats 2 badges (thanks for the reminder @vincenthaywood and a 30th party.

So could we get the Spooky Swarm badge tomorrow - lets go for it http://plancast.com/p/2t1g  

One of the problems about setting a challenge is once completed people ask what's next?

Well what should we do next? maybe the foursquare community would like to answer in this post via the comments section?

The one thing for sure is that I will not be aiming for a second superswarm (250).

I have of course been intrigued by the logo below. Could we really get 1000 people in 1 location, does this badge actually exist? Only until foursquare themselves confirm this could we really start to work out how we do this - I would like to be the first in the world to help pull this together.

We could also plan something 'a bit special' - which could be on foursquare day which is Saturday April 16th 2011. 

A few people in the run up to our #superswarmLDN campaign had a few negative things to say @dorando suggested we should get a charity involvement and even though I don't think 325 people turning up at the same time is what a soup kitchen actually wants - I get the sentiment.  Unfortunatelly the tweet below came in on the day of our attempt, so we did not have time to implement any of the input, hopefully he can take part and share his idea's. 

Over the next few weeks a small gathering of foursquare users @unicornRW @rheaj @cpchannel @danwtmoon @vincenthaywood @johnnieego are starting to put together idea's, thoughts, plans and the ridiculous.

If anybody wants to join these very early discussions then best follow @unicornRW as she usually rallies us together and picks dates, times and venues.

Looking forward to some fresh thinking.

If your name is missing email chris@superswarm.co.uk

To organise a superswarm event you need :

325 Check in's 

1 venue

80000+ blog views

15,734 unique views

10 initial influencers

4 Face to Face meetings

3 Skype calls

1 MSN chat

200 metal badges - I know I know supplier screwup

10 T-shirts

5 Kodak Camera's

12 Phone calls

14 blog posts

2 bit.ly shortcuts

1 Plancast account

1 Twitter account

1 Facebook account - never used !!!!

2 people to travel from The Netherlands

2 people to travel down from Birmingham

1 checkin from Las Vegas and Liverpool - I saw you

It was not long, well actually on the night that people ran up to me clutching their phones screaming "i have not got the superswarm badge" and although mine took an hour to come through, there was 10 people who did not - now these people are patient but did all feel a little robbed.  Interestingly their 10 checkin's where in the 325 count, so as far as i see it they helped and played their part to getting the badge for us all. Thankfully @matt_hodkinson had already made an intro to the USA 4sqr team and @jackthefurst wanted all the details of people etc. A tense 24 hours then this email came in. 

They had us all sorted in just from me sending in all the screen shots and proof they needed.

Thanks @rcownley, @chookie75, @foursquaregames, @adventurepeople, @mikthebrick, @ericswain, @j8nxe, @cafers for giving me the time to chase up.

Thanks @jackthefurst for allowing us to backcheck and prove - i know you are sticklers for accuracy and truth.

London V Cheltenham

(download)

Click here to download:

its-been-7-days-since-we-got-our-superswarm-badge-jvbxEAsbgDpIqazEihsf.zip (7.73 MB)

Just to set the record straight we never set our date to be 2 days ahead of the Cheltenham Team to get the badge before them, the first date we picked was actually 30th September but on the advice of @rheaj and @unicornRW at the start that was just to ambitious even for an event without a plan.  This team had a very tough challenge and put up a very good fight getting around 115 checkin but interestingly they could have done it or got very close.  When I got there to the Cheltenham festival already had 100+ and the Bank house reached 115 max and I dont think they had much cross over. 

I was never sure why the Cheltenham team switched their venue?  Meeting the guys behind the plan was great fun and amazingly there was also 2 other people who had supported the London unlock.

They even featured me in their video :-)

Was the superswarm badge possible at Cheltenham? I think there was a tactic that would have achieved success.

Its worth giving a final shout out to that team - they went into the task as focused as we where in London and actually pulled of a statistically brilliant result.

Amazing job - Adrian Malpass, Andy Thorne, Andrew Burgess, Chris Roberts, Holly Knowlman, Jonathan Pollinger

I have a feeling they will be back with another go ..... I hope so becuase they can do it.

Over the last few days people have contacted me regarding the non issue of their superswarm badge and knowing what effort i put in to get my badge I know how disappointing this must be.

I am going to put a full email together (with followup phone call :-)) to 4sqr but i need information from all people that do not have the superswarm badge.

The picture below is taken from the foursquare website http://foursquare.com/history go there and sign in under you account name you checked into Jewel Piccadilly with.  Make sure you capture the screen like I have so we can see the date, time of your check in. 

 Please also send me your foursquare username and screen capture to badges@superswarm.co.uk

I will do my best to help

I will make a bigger post later but for now .....

(download)

Click here to download:

job-done-aoHhgdHeBfyfowHiEyqw.zip (290 KB)

This is probably the last post before the #superswarmLDN event tonight. Yes I am very very nervous. This project has taken three weeks with virtually no planning or thought as to what would happen on the journey.  But we are here and 'what will be will be'.

We all know the venue is Jewel Piccadilly at 4 - 6 Glasshouse Street at Piccadilly Circus.  The time to checkin between 6pm and 9pm today at the venue - its all down to us now

A final few housekeeping items - thanks @danwtmoon for most of them:

• There will be WIFI - the SSID will be 'superswarmLDN' and the password is 'foursquare' 
• We will be giving away one camera to somebody that checked in at the random checkin number picked by Kodak
• Watch out for @Paul_Clarke uber cool photo guy and get featured in our flickr set
• We would love to see some phototweeting on the night please use #superswarmLDN in the tag as I want to catch them all and make some mural type picture of the night
• Happy Hour finishes at 8pm at the location so until then everything is half price
• There is a free cocktail for all checkins but because of the mass number of people we will give you the voucher at the door when you checkin
• There will be people with #superswarmLDN T-shirts on if anybody needs help or just want to chat about our journey
• If people could leave lots of tips at the venue - that would be a nice reminder to everybody that the first attempt was here

This is your night and completely organised by the foursquare community and London tech scene to get the superswarm badge without having to go to the USA - this is our own reward.

There are only a few hours left for everybody to communicate about the night and bring along as many people as possible to be part of mobile social history.

Looking forward to seeing you all tonight!