Location: Mickeys Bar & Patio
Date: Saturday, August 03, 2013; 12:00-4:30 pm
When I saw this on the One Brick
calendar, my first thought was to participate in the race itself. I have seen Scavenger/Treasure Hunt shows on
TV and many many moons ago had participated in one myself - and it had
been fantastic. I remember one of the
clues was something related to Sherlock Holmes address and there was a ‘Sherlock’ pub nearby. As me and my partner traversed the street up
and down, we were totally immersed in the experience. Years later I wanted to do it again, but was
unable to find a companion as much as I tried.
So here I was, signing up to volunteer instead and the only question was
whether I wanted to do the first or the second shift, or even both! The first one was when the contestants set
off and the second was to welcome them back.
I thought that I would sleep in a bit and so showed up on location at
noon.
I arrived to see that the morning
crew was almost done and were now enjoying themselves. Well, everyone but Wilson, who was the
manager for morning shift, but was now directing volunteer traffic; and Rich,
who was continuing for 2nd shift.
The organizers called us all to attention and said that as a first task they needed 3 volunteers to staff a check point, which was at least a mile
away. Once those folks had departed they required 2 outside to check-in the returning teams and clock them, two to
do Facebook raffle and surveys and two to verify the clues. I had no idea what “verifying the clues” meant, but it sounded more interesting than
anything else, so I hopped aboard that. Matt
was going to be joining me on this task and so we were directed to a booth at the
end of the room and Jason, the organizer came over to give us
instructions.
We were given the same clue sheet
that the contestants had, along with the answers. There were 9 clues which they had to solve in
order to discover the locations that they had to visit; and as a proof, they
had to take a picture of themselves over there.
Plus, they could skip one of the locations, while 3 were mandatory and some
had tasks which they would have to perform.
Also, there were two other bonus questions that they had to attempt for
which they would get a time credit. Matt
and I had to look at their smart phone or camera pictures and verify that they
had complied. If they missed anything,
then there would be a time penalty to what they had checked-in with. The first clue pointed towards a yogurt truck
in Wrigleville and was mandatory. Next
was the pub ‘Halsted Harp’ followed
by another mandatory one at a comic shop on Belmont. Now, this was where the One Brick volunteers
were staffed, and they were to assist the teams in selling One Brick glasses to
passer’s by. If they were unable to
sell, they could either buy them from us or risk taking a penalty. Seemed like a nice way to raise money for One
Brick. The other clues pointed towards ‘Treasure Island’, ‘Red Orchid’ theater, ‘Camelot’
store and ‘Halsted Florist’, which
was the final mandatory stop and had a task for them.
 |
| This would be interesting |
One of more interesting tasks was
for the participants to get three ‘Cubs’ fans
to pose making the ‘SOX’ sign. Now, having been here for 2 years, I know the
kind of rivalry the two teams have, not so much on the field as off it. This continues with the fans, who both claim
certain sections of the city as their own and we were certainly located on the ‘Cubs’ side of the city. So to get those fans to pose making ‘Sox’ letters would be a monumental
achievement and if I was doing the race, I may have seriously considered skipping
on this one. The final clue was a
Bullseye ring with 4 rings and the participants could choose one of the rings
and complete the tasks on it. For
example, the outermost ring had them taking their pictures with a ‘Red Hybrid’, ‘Chopsticks’, ‘Sunflower’ and
‘American Flag’ whereas the innermost ring had a single task, that was to
take a picture with a dog in a bag. Once
again, I couldn't even imagine how they were going to find someone carrying a
little dog when in a pinch. The two bonus
questions had contestants taking pictures with some words like “Fun” or “Volunteer” or “Friends” or “Sun” etc. The teams could be of 2, 3 or 4 and they
could do solve the clues in any order that they pleased, as long as they took public transport or were on foot - no cabs or bicycles. The only caveat was that all the team members
needed to be in the pictures.
We were ready to begin and soon a
team of two guys came in and they looked like they had been working hard at the
race. We checked their pictures and with
no penalty points, they were by far the leaders. Then came a team of two girls, followed by a
family of three. The dad said that he,
along with the daughter had finished third last year, whereas he and his wife
had been first the previous year. This
time they had decided to participate together and unofficially were in 3rd
place. Soon there was a flurry of activity
and Matt and I were busy checking the pictures and marking compliance. Many competitors had not managed to sell the
glasses and while some purchased them, many were returned back to us. We were to ask them what the task was; else
they had to forfeit their point, though everyone knew what the glasses were
for. In terms of penalties, missing a
mandatory clue was 60 minutes, whereas missing a typical clue was 30 minute
penalty. On the other hand, solving the
bonus clue deducted 10 minutes from the time.
Surprisingly, almost everyone had managed to solve the clues and there
were very few penalties. Plus people had
managed to come up with some creative ways of complying with the pictures, especially
with the bonus questions. Also,
many had managed to find someone with a dog in a bag and more surprisingly had
convinced many ‘Cubs’ fans to pose as
‘Sox’ – including three girls dressed
in ‘Cardinals’ shirts, which
according to me would have been a double whammy. Imagine having someone dressed in the uniform of your hated rival asking you to pose as your other rival! For accomplishing that these ladies deserved double points.
There were many in costumes,
including one covered in bug swatters – named SWAT – toga, wigs, Mardi Gras etc. Most had checked in by 3pm and Jason
announced the winners, who were in the order that we had checked them in. There were also prizes for best costume, won
by SWAT, and best tweet. Soon thereafter
people dispersed and we were left to clean.
During that, we had a scary moment when one of the contestants fainted
and we had to call 911 – where is Wilson when you need him. Thankfully she was just dehydrated, having
also run a half marathon in the morning.
Wilson did arrive and we all retired to the patio to relax and chat. Jason joined us to discuss the
race and he was off to Denver next, just one of the 23 stops for the race! He said that the turnout this year was lower
than expected, with only 50 teams that were participating – Lollapalooza having something to do with
it. However there had been some serious
competitors, one team even getting instructions from their friends via
Bluetooth. So while the friends were
remotely searching the internet for answers to the clues, these guys spent all
their time just running from one destination to another. Well competitive or not, it definitely felt
like all of them had loads of fun and so had we. Maybe next year I will participate…and get Wilson to help out on the Bluetooth!
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