The biggest ‘snow jobs’ in the world of festivals

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Quentin Tarantino will not be at the Barranquilla Film Festival. It turns out that everything was, as the organizers call it, "a cordial snow job"

A few days ago, the organizers of the Barranquilla Film Festival announced that Quentin Tarantino would be at the opening ceremony of the festival. Many well-respected media covered the news and fans of cinema and classic films of the director like Pulp Fiction and his most recent successes as Dgango Unchained were deluded with seeing his idol.

Leer en español: Las más grandes 'mamaderas de gallo' en el mundo de los festivales

Now, earlier this week the same festival organizers, who were also the ones who started the rumor, published a statement on their social networks saying that it was a "cordial snow job." In the statement, they compare their gesture with that of Orson Welles in 1938, who in a radio speech convinced the inhabitants of New York that the aliens had arrived on planet Earth to prove the absurd power of the media. The organizers of the Barranquilla Film Festival, however, are more like an uncle to whom the joke at dinner went wrong than Orson Welles, because his joke has outraged many of his assistants. In the end, a gesture that sought to challenge the conventions of film festivals and comment on the flow of information through the media and social networks was perceived as a hoax for movie fans.

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Here we remember two other great "cordial snow jobs" that offended festival attendees inside and outside of Colombia.

Snoop Dogg at the Jamming Festival, Bogotá

In 2014, the Bogotá Reggae and Rap Jamming Festival announced that rapper Snoop Dogg would headline his 2015 version of the lineup. This would be perhaps the most celebrated artist that would have received this musical festival. However, days later the same artist published in his social media that he would not be or was never among his plans to attend the Jamming Festival. The organizers of the festival told the fans that they were also surprised by the rapper's statements. In the end, everything was a scam that a fake rapper agency made to the festival, and the Jamming had to take responsibility and compensate the public. The festival was held anyway in 2015 with other artists on its poster such as Shaggy and Morodo. The Festival Stereo Picnic, also from Bogotá, would bring Snoop Dogg the following year and he would head the line up that year, so the city of Bogotá did not miss seeing the rapper live.

Read also: Music Festivals' weirdest locations

Fyre Festival, Great Exuma

Two months ago, Netflix launched its original documentary about the Fyre Festival, the biggest "snow job" of all. It is a music festival promoted by businessman Billy McFarland and rapper Ja Rule. The two founders of the festival promised a luxury experience in which attendees could rent cabins on the beach of an island that had belonged to Pablo Escobar. For this, they made commercials and campaigns on social networks with models and influencers that promoted the festival and the luxury experience that consisted of a first-class poster, beach huts, and luxury yachts. The festival was later known as one of the worst frauds in the music industry, as the luxury cabins consisted of tents for refugee camps, the poster on an empty stage and the luxury experience on a desert island without water, food or water. Netflix documented the entire process in the collection of archive videos of the festival and its organization and interviews with those who participated in the scam.

LatinAmerican Post | Juliana Rodríguez Pabón

Transalted from "Las más grandes 'mamaderas de gallo' en el mundo de los festivales"