The packed crowd learned about the event from the My Spirit Halloween website. Upon arrival at a destination, they were informed by the locals that no such parade took place and eventually dispersed, after which they suspected a scam.
A Pakistan-based company apologised after mistakenly advertising a non-existent Halloween parade in Dublin, Ireland. A promoted post of the parade event sent thousands of Dubliners flocking onto the city’s main street – O’Connell Street – waiting for the phantom parade. “Human error” on the company’s part, said the firm.
Videos recorded Thursday night showed crowds lining both sides of O’Connell Street, apparently waiting for some procession of giant Halloween puppets made by one of Ireland’s best-known theatre groups, the Galway performance company Mácnas. Film-maker Bertie Brosnan took to X, formally known as Twitter, to share what happened on Halloween night.
“I was there filming for 40 minutes. From Parnell Square West – both sides of the street – people were packed five to 10 deep, lined up around the corner as far as the spire. Thousands were there. The Luas [tramline] was completely blocked on both lines,” she wrote, saying:
The crowd saw the event listed on the My Spirit Halloween website. The audience reached the spot, but they were sent back there by gardaí since, as Ireland’s police informed them, no such parade would happen. After all, they came to suspect that it was some scam or seasonal trickery.
Their company website announced that the fake event would occur between 7 pm and 9 pm on Thursday. Afterwards, it was discovered that one of its staff copied and pasted last year’s event notice into this year’s calendar.
