Card stunt

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Large card stunt [1]performed at the 2004 Rose Bowl Game, note instruction on screen

Card stunts are a pre-planned, coordinated sequence of actions performed by an audience, whose members raise cards that, in the aggregate, create a recognizable image. The images they create can range widely and, through careful planning, the same cards can create a number of different images by alternating how the cards are held up. Although card stunts are now performed at a variety of events ranging from sports to political rallies, the card stunt is most closely associated with American football, particularly college football, as well as football (soccer) where it can form part of a tifo. The North Korean mass games Arirang Festival, however, were the first to extend the card stunt to an art form, using flip-book cards to produce enormous hour-long animated sequences.

The first card stunt was performed by students at the University of California, Berkeley during the 1910 Big Game, between Cal and rival Stanford University, and consisted of two stunts in total: a picture of the Stanford Axe and a large blue "C" on a white background. While the card stunt is closely associated with college football, this first instance took place at a rugby match because all the major colleges and universities on the West Coast of the United States had briefly dropped football in favor of rugby during the early 1910s. As universities switched back, students brought the card stunts with them and by that time they became a national phenomenon associated with college football.

While the tradition has subsided at many American colleges and universities, the University of California maintains the tradition through the UC Rally Committee.

Card stunt set up before NASCAR's Sharpie 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway

A somewhat similar action was performed at the opening ceremonies for the 1988 Winter Olympics at Calgary. Instead of holding cards, spectators donned colored ponchos, which created images throughout the stadium. The poncho stunt was similar to a precursor to card stunts often performed at college football games in PAC-10 schools. During such stunts, rooting sections would often wear colored hats or jackets and arrange themselves in such a way as to display a school logo or other design.

The card stunt has been the object of several famous college pranks, including the Great Rose Bowl Hoax and Yale's "We Suck" Prank.

During the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1980 Summer Olympics in the Olympic Stadium (now Luzhinki Stadium) the stand front to the presidium many students made many images with this techniques. One of the most unforgettable was a Misha with a tear dropping during the closing ceremonies of the event.[2] In the final part of the opening ceremonies of the 1984 Summer Olympics all the spectators who attended in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum made a stunt with colored card stunt which was a gift in the entrance. The stunt was the image of all the flags of the nations.[3]

A 2006 Super Bowl commercial by Budweiser, titled "The Wave", features a fictional card stunt using computer animation. The crowd at the Rose Bowl performs a card stunt which shows a beer bottle being opened and poured around the stadium into a glass and subsequently being consumed one gulp at a time. The crowd finished with a collective "AHHHH".^{[citation needed]}

In February, 2006 the Gillette company sponsored the World's Largest Card stunt at the NASCAR Daytona 500 with over 118,000 fans set to participate.^[1] During the singing of the National Anthem fans held up cards forming a Patriotic design consisting of stars and stripes. Following the National Anthem, fans flipped the cards to display the Gillette Fusion logo. The card stunt was produced by JacobDavis Productions.