I love Douglas Adams! How can I get involved?

• Help the cause by spreading the word! Tweet about #towelday, blog, post in forums, share a link in Facebook, etc.
  
• We will gladly announce here any event you organize on Towel Day. Just mail us. Some ideas: a get-together over drinks, a party, movie viewing, book reading, exposition, concert, flash mob... or why not something completely different? More ideas
  
• On Towel Day, carry a towel. Where? Everywhere!
  
• Proudly show the world you've observed Towel Day. You're encouraged to upload a picture on Flickr (tag it "towelday") or a video YouTube. There's also a Flickr Towel Day group.

What's happening on Towel Day 2012?

This list is still VERY incomplete.
Please tell us about the events you organize. For inspiration, check out 2011!

AUSTRALIA

• In Sydney, the Kinokuniya bookstore once again offers customers who wear a towel a 20% discount on their full-priced book purchases. There are some conditions: 1) your towel must be around your neck when you approach the cashier staff, 2) preferably a bathroom towel or large hand towel, 3) one discount per towel and one discount per person, 4) not available in conjunction with any other offer.

• In Bregenz, you can attend "The Arthur Dent Experience". It starts at 19:30 o'clock at the "Platz der Wiener Symphoniker", in front of the Bregenzer Festspielhaus. The discussion between Arthur and Mr. Posser in front of the yellow bulldozer will be re-enacted AND THERE WILL BE A YELLOW CAT930 (and peanuts, beer and a bowl of Petunias). Every frood with a towel can feel like Arthur and have a go at lying down in front of this heavy construction machinery. Details and RSVP on Facebook. Check out last year's radio interview, video and pictures.

• In São Paulo, there's the annual Marcha Da Toalha! Details and RSVP on Facebook.
• Since the world may end in 2012, Livraria Cultura CasaPark Shopping Center (Brasilia, Brazil) will host an emergency drill for all galactic hitchhikers who want to be ready to hop on the Vogon Spaceships and takeoff before it’s too late! We’ll learn the strategies used by Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect watching the best scenes of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie, and create a collaborative list of items that must be present in the hitchhiker’s backpack. Also, as an "endurance test" we’ll host a Vogon Poetry Contest with an special secret prize for the author of the worst verses of the Universe! The Drill will be held on May 25th, at 19h23min, and the first 42 attendants to show up carrying a towel will receive a special gift (button) sent by Megadodo Publications (one of the great publishing houses of Ursa Minor Beta). Details and RSVP on Facebook. This info is also confirmed on the website.

• On May 20th, radio station ECFM in Nova Scotia will broadcast an interview about Towel Day with Mark Roberts at 10 am Atlantic Daylight Time, UTC/GMT -3 hours. There is a "Listen Live" button on their website, so anyone on the internet can hear when it airs live. You may know Mark from a variety of Towel Day events, including appearances on Canadian TV and in a Colombian radio program. Thank you Mark, you rock!
• The Toronto froods are preparing a flash mob! Details and RSVP on Facebook.
• In Prince George, BC, there's a Hitchhiker's Read In at Books & Company. They'll be reading anything by Douglas Adams from 4:42 pm to 6:42 pm in their Cafe, Cafe Voltaire. Details and RSVP on Facebook.

• In Dubai, Eduan Maggo is looking for people who plan something for Towel Day.

• In Tampere, a Finnish bunch will have a towel-meet at restaurant Plevna in the city center. Towels are mandatory. Finnish Towel Day Facebook page. Details and RSVP on Facebook.
• In Turku, for half a decade already, froods have been celebrating The Towel Day by reading and writing the worst poetry in the universe in Cosmic Comic Cafe (Facebook page). Customers with a towel get a discount for Pangalactic Gargle Blasters!

• Near Paris, the Grand Ordre de la Serviette and the Don't Panic Club present an elaborate program, starting at 11.00: h2g2 exhibition, movie viewing, lecture, improv, cosplay, towel beauty contest, another lecture and finally English tea & jelly. At 18.00 the towel olympics 2012 will start at the Arènes de Lutèce. Have a look at this video of last year's towel olympics! Details and RSVP on Facebook.

• In Berlin, there will be the traditional flash mob at the Alexanderplatz. Watch a short video documenting the 2011 edition. Details here.
• Also in Berlin, The Maxim Gorki Theater is opening their Studio space for Towel Day - visitors, ideas, participants are all very welcome. From all areas of the theatre, actors, musicians, tech-staff etc will participate by performing, cooking, singing, printing, exhibiting... something for Towel Day - details are to follow. More
• And Berliner can also attend the annual Towel Day cocktail competition ("Space-drinc-contest") at the Space Station (Rungestr. 20, 2HH, Mitte, Berlin, Germany, ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha). Details. Here's a video from the 2011 competition.
• In Salzgitter, cinema "Kultiplex" will show the movie "Per Anhalter durch die Galaxis" at 20:15 p.m. Afterwards a groop of people with towels will go to a pub where a special cocktail will be served (Pangalaktischer Donnergurgler). Details and RSVP on Facebook.
• In the Hamburg Planetarium there will be a reading from "The hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by the actors Tomasso Cacciapuoli and Regina Stötzel. More info.
• Also in Hamburg, there's a meetup for geocachers at the Rathausmarkt in front of the Hamburger Rathaus from 19:00-19:42. Further instructions: Facebook and Geocaching.com.
• In Mainz, Gerorg Banek will walk around in the streets photographing people with towels.
• Also in Mainz, geocachers will meet eachother with their towel at a cache and chat about geocaching, trackables. etc.
• In Dresden, Club HängeMathe will host an open air projection of the movie "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
• In Hannover, in the pub "Kuriosum", everyone with a towel gets a big beer for a small price.
• In Backnang, lounge club DasWohnzimmer lists May 25th's musician as "SilverI"Ron M.F. Jeremy "Towel Day Edition" [mixed]. It sounds very mysterious. We have no idea what it means.

• In Glyfada, a suburb of Athens, Anima Rock Bar will host a Towel Night, with home made Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters. Details on Facebook.

• In Budapest at 9pm there's a Night Ride tour by bicycle, organized by the Night Riders Team. Everyone is free to participate. Don't forget your towel! Details and RSVP on Facebook.

• In Pune, froods will meet in Pune at 20:00 (8pm) at Volare on the Baner Pashan Link Road. For one day and one day only pan galactic gargle blasters will be served there. Towels, as expected are mandatory, digital watches are appreciated, a bit of Vogon poetry would go down well with the pan galactic gargle blaster. Details and RSVP on Facebook.
• In Bangalore, Vineetha Paruchuri is looking for people who are up for organizing a Towel Day event.
• Keep and eye on Towel Day India for more! (you never know)

• In Bali, the faithful Douglas Adams fans who celebrated Towel day last year (pictures) are at it again! They will be meeting for drinks at a new venue: the Kilamantan Restaurant in Sanur. They write: "This favourite watering hole is known to ex-pats and locals as "Borneo Bob's" since the owner (originally from Colorado USA) spent a long time living in that side of Indonesia. [...] Preparations are underway to have bigger banners, more Pan Galactic and a load of T shirts complete with our dolphins! If you are visiting Sanur, Bali on the 25th May please join us from 4pm... but don't forget your towel! (Anyway, in paradise, who does not have a towel?)"

• Towel Day will be celebrated in Dublin in the city center. All details will be published on Facebook.

• In Parma there's an annual Towel Day gathering of fans of Douglas Adams. Details and RSVP on Facebook.

• Mar's is creating a geocache in The Netherlands, which will be online on May the 25th! See www.geocaching.com.

• In Saint-Petersburg, Towel Day will be celebrated for the second time. There's a meeting at Dvortsovaja Square. At the time of writing, 82 people had already confirmed their participation! The memory of Douglas Adams is alive and well in Russia! More information

• Teacher Mikael Ekström wrote in Teachers' News ("Lararnas Nyheter") about how he explained Towel Day to his students and several of them started reading the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

• In Zurich, Towel Day will be celebrated for the 3rd time! Meeting place is the Polyterrasse of ETH Zurich, at 4 pm. Our contact writes: "We'll hang around there, inform people about the advantages of (even everyday) carriage of a Towel and you can be assured: Beer will be available, too!" More

• In Cambridge ZZ9 members will be running a tour of the city on the evening of Towel Day, starting at the railway station (18:30 for 18:45) and ending at a pub. See where Douglas Adams was born, where he went to University, where the biscuit incident took place, where the TARDIS landed in Shada, and many more. Then have a drink and find out about Douglas's connection with the Baron of Beef pub. Should be in the pub (i.e. the tour ends) by 21:00. Start: 18:45 at Cambridge Railway Station. Look out for the people with towels (and Don't Panic t-shirts). They will wait for the 17:44 from London Kings Cross (due in Cambridge at 18:34) unless it has a problem with that deadline. Info and RSVP on Facebook or via CambridgeTowelDay at gmail dot com.
• Also in Cambridge: the annual Towel Day celebration at the Elm Tree pub. Not a huge event, but every year a few froods "get together, have a few beers + celebrate the life and works of the great man". Details and RSVP on Facebook.
• In London, after last year's storming success, Whippersnapper Press is once again hosting a Vogon Poetry Slam, in a shiny new venue. Last year's grand prize was a bowl of petunias. This year it will be a towel. There will be two categories: Nerdcore and So-Bad-It’s-Good. There will be prizes. There will be hoopy froods. There will be an unnecessarily bureaucratic voting system. Be there, be square and have a whale of a time. Details and RSVP on Facebook. You can also find info on Whippersnapper Press' website.
• In Edinburgh, fans will march along the royal mile in dressing gowns with towels and cups of tea. More
• In Worcester, NOT on Towel Day but on May 30th, the 42 open mic night will be staging the event "Vogonesque II". Last year's "Vogonesque" open mic night was a huge success and the organisers decided to make it an annual event. Featuring some of the best contemporary writers and performance poets working in the genre arena, the night will see appearances by Andrew Owens, Jackie Summers, Craigus Barry and Ed Steelfox, Geoff Robinson, Suz Winspear, Michael. R. Brush, Fergus McGonigal, William Shatspeare, David Calcutt and Wolfren Riverstick. The fame of this event held in Worcester has spread as far as the Crab Nebula, where tickets are sold in advance in order to secure geostationary orbit parking places. Residents of the planet Earth need not worry about this, as they have an unfair advantage, and simply need to climb the stairs to The Lunar Bar above The Swan With Two Nicks public house where the event will be held. More here and on Facebook.
• The hoopy froods at Thales e-Security are holding a sponsored Towel Day for their staff this year. All funds raised from the event will be donated to the Alzheimer’s Society (The Thales sponsored charity this year). Participants will donate to partake; non-participants will be fined for not knowing where their towel is. They have a Just Giving page for the event.
• The library at St Cuthbert's Catholic High School (United Kingdom) is counting down to Towel Day, with a quote every day. Towels will be proudly displayed on the glorious day.
• Alex, Millie and Mollie have persuaded the school librarian to let them celebrate Towel Day at school (Friary School in Lichfield). They've designed and created a big display board and on Towel Day some teachers who are Douglas Adams fans will read out some extracts to people assembled in the library.

• Gregory Cowles informed the The New York Times readership about Towel Day in his May 11 Sunday Book Review. Thank you Mr Cowles!
• Attending Phoenix Comicon on Towel Day? Lots of you probably are! Meet Terra and others there, and "celebrate in style"! Details on Facebook and twitterers can RSPV on Tweetvite.
• In Dover, NH, fans will meet to celebrate Towel Day at La Festa Brick and Brew Pizzeria. Organizer Sam Ronda adds "This may possibly be the first time for Dover, NH". Details and RSVP on Facebook.
• In Ukiah, CA, you can hang out with friendly hitchhikers at a BBQ in a public park and listen to the radio show. "This will be kid friendly, pet friendly and towel friendly. [...] It's just about hanging out but if you want to bring some Guide themed anything please do! :D [...] Once we're done at the park there will be an after party at my place (I live one block away) where there will be a viewing of the film." Details and RSVP on Facebook.
• In Birmingham, NY, taters343 is looking for people to celebrate Towel Day with. If you'll be in that area, talk to him on Reddit!
• In NYC, RobairRobair is looking for interested people. He's on Reddit.
• In Magnolia, TX, Max Beeman wants to have people at high school carry towels. He has made a video explaining what Towel Day is about, that will be playing around school inside each class room for announcements.
• Paula D. Matthews, Stanford Calderwood Director and Librarian wrote in the May 2012 Newsletter of the Boston Athenaeum (a membership library that dates back to 1807) about Towel Day. In "From the Director's Desk", she informs her readers about what Towel Day, Douglas Adams and towels are all about. Thank you!
• In CA, Ken Sipes and his online radio program Behind the Curtain celebrate Towel Day by inviting people to participate in Operation Blankets of Love and other animal welfare projects.
• Jen Henley and a coworker are holding a towel drive at their workplace to collect towels to distribute to area animal shelters. She writes: "The shelters use the towels as comfortable bedding for the animals, and also for bathing and cleanup. This seemed like a nice way to observe Towel Day -- I think Douglas Adams would have approved (read )."
• Animeggroll, an anime Store in St. Louis, MO, is having a towel drive for the local Crestwood animal shelter. On May 25th, 2012 with a donation of a towel (it must not have holes or frayed edges as the animals can get caught up in them) or a roll of paper towels they will give 20% off any one new item in the store that day (even kimonos). Yellow tags are consignment items and are not included. One towel discount per person for the day. They will also be accepting donations of these needed items for the shelter: Dry Purina dog and cat food, Pedigree canned dog food, 9 Lives canned cat food, dog and cat treats, Regular cat litter, rawhide chews, cat toys, and used dog & cat beds, collars & leashes in good condition. Cleaning supplies, paper towels are also always needed.

• We are happy to report that Frank Eckstrom has won the Towel Day Ambassador contest. He will be an excellent successor to the very charming Ms Deena Roth. We trust that he will be devoted to the cause and make the universe safer and slightly more surreal! Our sincere congratulations to Frank for his well-deserved title and to the organizers. Some of his achievements: he got a "Don't Panic" tattoo last year, he created the "Galactic Hitchhikers" group, he and his brother made Milliways in Second Life and organized a Towel Day event there, etc. Here's the short video Frank submitted for the contest.
• The Literary Platform is hosting an international competition inviting creatives to produce an animation that illustrates an audio recording of Douglas Adams talking in 1993 about the Evolution of the Book, from the ‘hardware problems’ of writing on rocks, to scrolls, to the bound book and finally the silicon chip.
  Entries will be judged by Stephen Fry, Bob Stein (SocialBook, Inc), Ranjit Dhaliwal (The Guardian) and Merlin Nation and Chris Angelkov (Atyp).
  The public will be able to vote for their favourite animation in order to help the judges get down to a longlist of candidates. The judging panel will then choose their winner, and the winning entrant will be announced on Towel Day 2012. The winner of the competition will win an iPad2 loaded with Douglas Adams books and apps and a Don’t Panic towel to carry on Towel Day. Selected entrants will also see their work hosted on The Literary Platform and exhibited at a launch event to tie in with Towel Day.
  Entry deadline: 15 April 2012
  Winner announced: Towel Day (25 May 2012)
  More info
• Like every year, talented graphics artist Travis Avery is offering free Towel Day themed wallpapers for your computer, tablet or phone. Thanks, Travis!
• In Second Life, Towel Day will once again be observed:
  "Milliways in Second Life is back! Returning for our 3rd Annual Towel Day Celebration this year with an all new build, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe has never looked so good! Milliways is open just for the month of May for general hanging about and casual roleplay, but will culminate on the 25th for our Towel Day Extravaganza. We have a host of entertainment lined up for the big day, returning from last year our headliners Suzan Littlething and DJ Gilliam will be performing live. As is tradition we have an assortment of freebies ,t-shirts, Hitchhikers Guides, and Towels for those who might have lost theirs. Don’t miss the best party of the year in SL!
  Visit Milliways: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Extropia%20Core/51/16/2508
  Entertainment schedule soon at: http://h2g2sl.wordpress.com/
  For more information, questions, or comments please feel free to contact DarthVenger Blackheart or Link Squall in-world."
• On Towel Day 2012 a group of Students from Exeter and Falmouth (The Falmouth and Exeter Light Entertainment and Drama Society or 'Feccles') will release the first episode of their radio adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The programme will be available for download worldwide, so there is no excuse to miss out! At this time, the best way to keep up with their efforts is via Facebook.
• Gbanga, the Swiss-made location based game for iPhone/iPad, is celebrating Towel Day with three very special cross-dimensional quest. Gbanga combines a virtual world with reality, allowing you to explore a hidden dimension using just your mobile phone (and a towel). Players are invited to accomplish three geo-based missions: the Strag Quest, A Towel Is All You Need, and All You Need Is A Towel, which must require relocation to various parts of the universe, and the use of various hitchhiking skills. So get ready for The Towel Day Journey taking places between May 23 - June 5!
  Gbanga is free to play on iPhone and iPad, the plans are on display at: www.gbanga.com/towelday
• Before Douglas Adams died, he wrote Shada, a Doctor Who adventure, which was completed by Gareth Roberts. AudioGO, the home of BBC audiobooks, has now released a 10 CD set audiobook and will be giving away five CD sets on h2g2.com during the two weeks leading up to Towel Day.
• Jonathan Mahood will draw a special Bleeker comic for Towel Day! http://bleekercomics.com/
• Matt designed a "Towel Day Awareness" t-shirt, which will get printed if enough people vote for it.
• Geocachers can find Towel Day themed caches on http://www.geocaching.com. You need to create an account and search under the tab 'play' -> 'hide & seek a cache' -> 'by cache name' -> type: Towel Day. You'll find caches and events organised in different countries all over the world. (thank you Mar's for the tip)
• In 2010, Towel Day became an official holiday in the Military Republic of the Deltan Imperium, a newly formed micronation. The project didn't last, but it's successor, the Terran Federation, has now also adopted Towel Day as an official holiday.
• Davros-10 is hosting a challenge on Bookcrossing to release as many books by Douglas Adams as possible on 25 May.
• People buying a towel from Urban Threads on Towel Day can get an free embroidered "Don't Panic" design on it.
• PeopleTowels, makers of reusable personal hand towels, have created a limited edition towel that you can win by participating in their contest that runs from May 14th until Towel Day.