Last month we told you that Tim Shaw would be shutting himself away in a box in a bizarre online treasure hunt with a £30,000 prize. Tim went into his box on the 15th February and by watching video streaming of him shut away in a 3.5ft high, 4.5ft wide and 8ft box, via the website Man In Box, viewers could win the cash prize if they could guess where he was located.
The £30,000 Wasn’t Won
The competition ended at noon on the 17th March, but no one guessed the exact location and so the £30,000 prize wasn’t won. According to a statement on the website one person was within 100m of the WWII location he was at but that wasn’t close enough for them to be able to claim the prize. The cash is now “being reinvested in to making Man In Box2”. However the social experiment/competition has caused a bit of a stir. A now deleted Youtube clip tries to explain why some viewers had concerns. Some people are wondering whether Tim actually spent the time in the box and whether there really was a prize on offer. You can hear more on this in a discussion with a listener on his BRMB radio program via this clip…
“Nobody Wins Was Part Of The Plan”
The revealing part of the clip is Tim basically saying “if nobody wins nobody wins was part of the plan” and that he also refused to reveal clues towards the end, as encouraged by the team, so that there could be a winner. Apparently the streaming could be rerun, but according to Tim someone else has to stump up the prize money. Interestingly the Man In Box forums and website have all but closed, so discussion about the event and competition have all but gone. A quick search round the internet didn’t seem to yield much discussion either.
Charity Is The Only Winner
The one good thing that did come out of it all was that it helped raise money for “Help for Heroes”. Despite all the statistics on offer on Man In Box the one figure they don’t mention is just how much was raised. All in all a strange ending to a strange experiment and competition.