Come Solo: The River Arts District Field Guide — A RAD Photo Challenge

Coming alone? Good — that is the ideal way to do this one.
Nobody needs to bring a friend. You show up by yourself, we put you on a team of four, and you spend the afternoon with them.
You get a phone, a team of four, and 75 minutes in the River Arts District.
This is a photo challenge, not a gallery tour. Each team gets a card with a dozen very specific, slightly ridiculous challenges scattered across the RAD — find a mural with an animal in it, get a working artist to tell you what they are making right now, recreate a painting as a team, talk your crew into the strangest group photo you can manage. Points for each one. Bonus points for style.
Teams are drawn at the start, so you will be paired with people you have not met. That is the entire point. It is much easier to talk to strangers when the four of you are trying to find a mural. Most people here will not know anyone either — that is true of nearly every Transplants event.
Then we come back to Wedge Studios, score everything out loud, and hand out some entirely unserious prizes.
The Plan:
• 2:00 PM — Meet at Wedge Studios, 37 Paynes Way. Grab a drink, get sorted into teams of four, pick up your challenge card.
• 2:30 PM — Teams head out on foot. The play zone runs through the RAD between Wedge Studios and Wedge at Foundation on Foundy St — about a mile end to end.
• 3:45 PM — Back at Wedge Studios. Teams turn in their photos.
• 4:00 PM — Scoring, prizes, and food.
• 5:00 PM — Official wrap. Stay as long as you like.
What to Know:
• Solo is the default. Teams are assigned on arrival, so you will never be standing around trying to join a group. If you do bring a friend, we will usually split you onto different teams — you will both meet more people that way.
• Running late? Comment on the event and we will slot you into a team when you get there.
• Free. No ticket, no buy-in. Food and drinks are pay-your-own, and nothing on the challenge card requires spending money.
• All you need is a phone with a working camera and shoes you can walk two miles in.
• Wedge Studios has free on-site parking.
• Food: Wedge Studios has a resident food truck (Trucking Delicious — burgers, patty melts, hot dogs) open Tuesday–Sunday during taproom hours.
• Wedge welcomes well-behaved dogs, though a 75-minute walk in the middle of the afternoon is not ideal for every dog.
• Getting there: I-26 Connector construction has closed Hill Street, so come in via Clingman Ave or Riverside Dr and give yourself a few extra minutes.
• Please be respectful in open studios — ask before photographing anyone's work up close.
• Rain plan: if it is genuinely pouring we will call it. A little drizzle and we go anyway.
Why This Event:
Most ways of meeting people involve standing in a room holding a drink and hoping. This one hands you a task and three teammates instead. You will finish the afternoon knowing a corner of your own city better than you did at lunch, and you will have actually talked to people — because you had to, to find the mural.
New to Asheville or ten years in, knowing everyone or knowing nobody, come play. Come solo — most of us do.