Thousands of people in Dublin got a rude awakening when they turned up in the city expecting a Halloween parade that never happened.
Those who thronged the streets of the Irish capital on Thursday, October 31, were clearly misinformed by MySpiritHalloween.com.
The website featured listings of Halloween events in Ireland, the UK, the US and Mexico. Among the events mentioned on the page was a parade in Dublin.
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According to pictures shared on social media, people were seen queuing in the city center waiting for the parade to start, BBC News reported. The police were not present.
A witness, Peter Farrelly, took video from his window of the crowd gathering on O’Connell Street. “It was funny,” he told the Independent. “We’re still smiling now.”
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Farrelly added: “Gardaí [Irish police] were trying to clear the street. Last night was also the Diwali festival, so a lot of people were out on the street [for that] as.”
Bertie Brosnan told BBC News that he initially thought the event was legitimate based on what he had seen online. Upon arrival, he realized that something was wrong “because parades usually have barricades, security, police and some kind of organization”, and he saw none of that – only the attendees.
O’Connell Street in Dublin, Ireland.
Guven Ozdemire/Getty/Stock Image
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In a post by UX on Thursday, Irish police further clarified what happened, writing: “Please note that contrary to information circulating on the internet, there is no planned Halloween parade in Dublin city center this evening or tonight.”
“All gathered on O’Connell Street in anticipation of such a parade are requested to disperse safely,” added the police.
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In an interview with The New York Times published on Friday, November 1, Nazir Ali, the owner of the My Spirit Halloween website, said that it was not his intention to deceive people and insisted that it was not a scam. He also said that artificial intelligence (AI) was used to create the website’s content.
MySpiritHalloween.com confirmed that the parade is organized by Macnas, an Irish theater company, CBS News reported. Macnas has already organized an annual Halloween parade in Dublin starting in 2013, but nothing is planned for this year, according to the Independent.
But he said times that he removed the listing from the site after learning of the error, adding, “We were very embarrassed.”
PEOPLE reached out to Ali via MySpiritHalloween.com and Macnas for comment on Friday.
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education