Carnival Cruise Lines has recently been promoting themselves by staging large stunts in US cities. Here in Philadelphia they built a giant (supposedly the world’s largest) piñata and promised to destroy it in South Philadelphia at 14th and washington (in the lot where Cirque De Solei usually sets up).

When I got there yesterday at 1:30 pm there was a small crowd around the piñata itself, where they were filming their commercial. They put us (the unpaid extras) behind orange safety cones. We anxiously waited, the destruction of some thing giant and colorful exciting our deep inner selves.

Apparently the Carnival Cruise lines people are not familiar with South Philadelphians, who by nature are very nice but impatient and don’t really like to follow orders. Around 2 pm people started to throw the candy found in boxes around the cone barricade at the PA’s (production assistants). They also told us the destruction was now scheduled for 2:30 pm We were told that we were to stay behind the cones and that a helicopter would fly by and film us (the unpaid extras) waving up at it. At some point there was a rush from the front of the barricade up to the piñata and the director (a man in a fleece who sounded as if he was on ludes) screamed through his bull horn “PEOPLE, NO! NO PEOPLE!”. This was followed by some retreated back to our barricade. This man then told us “These barricades are for your safety. Let’s have fun. Make the city of philadelphia proud. We will not destroy the piñata if you do not behave. You’re going to be a part of history…” blah, blah, blah. Smooth move. At 2:45 pm people started to filter out. A little later the announcement was made that there were technical difficulties, and there would be no destruction. The unpaid extras began to leave.

Now I pose this question…do you think they were ever going to bust the thing or did they just need some unpaid extras to film a commercial for Carnival?

Read an official article here

Tags:
Stunts
Philadelphia
Piñata