Few cities have an event as cool as Tacoma’s Monkeyshines, a kind of guerilla festival that engages the community in a way that no other festival in the area does. Monkeyshines generally coincide with the Lunar New Year and entails a massive city-wide search for balloons and glass medallions hidden throughout Tacoma. There is no real centralized control or event, apart from the glass artists who hide the glass, but are shrouded in secrecy. Anyone can join and thousands do, and yet many Tacoma residents still don’t know about this event… that it’s part of the fun.
It still has a bit of a clandestine nature.
Each year a secret team of glassblowers create hundreds of these unique balloons and medallions, all handcrafted by local artists who keep their identity private. Glassblowers do not sign the pieces and do not prefer to get your attention. Each piece is stamped with an image of an animal in honor of the Chinese New Year, which includes snakes, dragons, rams and other symbols of the Chinese zodiac. Each year’s glass is marked with that year’s Chinese zodiac symbol, but it’s not impossible that you will also find pieces from previous years if you really look.
It is known to happen.
If you find a locket or balloon, you can keep it. The only real rule of thumb is that if you find more than one, you shouldn’t take more than one piece per person. This is to help more people get a chance to get a glass. Monkeyshines are not supposed to be about glass grabbing. It’s about community and art and getting outside for fun.
Along with glass, seekers also tend to find other items along the way courtesy of other rogue participants in the fun. Marble Man is a legend of the Monkeyshines, who leaves marbles for the searchers to search. Unidentified guerrilla participants have randomly left stickers, smaller pieces of glass, lamp-worked glass, shells, or other handicrafts. Searchers sometimes leave other small gifts in places where they have found a piece of glass. Check every nook and cranny and you will be amazed what you find. You are also likely to find many Tacoma Painted Rocks, as they are hidden throughout the city, year-round.
You are more and more likely to find something other than a locket or orb as more and more people join in the fun of leaving gifts, but finding something can be quite exciting.
If you find more than one thing, it’s also fun to hide the items you find again. Or if you want to join, hide your own items of choice for other search engines to search for.
How can I find a piece of glass?
If you think you can sleep until 9 in the morning, take your time and go outside in the late morning, think again! Successful Monkeyshines hunters almost always go out early in the morning. Usually sometime around 5 a.m. or 6 a.m. is a good time to start. The early riser gets the worm – and the glass! It’s not impossible that you will find something later in the day, but your chances (from this glass hunter’s experience at least) are higher in the morning. However, sometimes monkeys (glass hideaways) shake things up and put batches of glass in on different mornings or run away during the day.
You never really know and monkeyshiners always strategize to keep the search interesting.
It is also helpful to check online before leaving. Search engines like to post images of what they have found in the comment sections on sites like Exit133 and other local blogs, or on social media (check #monkeyshines). This is a great way to get up-to-date ideas on what parts of the city to go to. If someone found a piece in one place, there are likely other pieces nearby.
If you go out really early and see one of the Monkeyshiners hiding the glass, don’t cheat! Reject. Move on.
Where should you look?
The goal of Monkeyshines is that the crystal is hidden. The balloons are approximately six inches in diameter. Medallions fit in the palm of your hand. The pieces are not large and easily fit in all kinds of spaces: wastebaskets, flower pots, trees and shrubs, on doors, on windowsills, on tree branches. Look carefully.
The fun is in the search, but because the city is big and seekers can’t get around every inch of the city, the glass tends to hide in popular spots rather than on neighborhood streets. Some of these include:
- Proctor District
- UW Tacoma
- Downtown – everywhere
- Theater district
- Almost every park in the city, but Wright Park and Point Defiance are popular places to look
- Business areas in South Tacoma
- Oceanfront
- Chinese reconciliation park
- South Tacoma Way
- People’s Park at Hilltop
Don’t forget that everything is fun
Every year, it is inevitable that someone moves online because they searched and found no glass. Remember that the fun is in the search and that you may or may not find a glass, but keep looking and you will almost certainly find other little treasures! And if you can’t find anything, enjoy the sense of community. You will almost always see other people watching and sometimes they offer advice on what they have seen or experienced in their search.
