The organisers of UK festival Parklife Weekender have issued an apology for causing “unnecessary personal distress” after their marketing team sent out stylised text messages advertising Parklife’s after-parties. The texts had been designed to look as if they’d come from the receiver’s ‘Mum’.
“Some of the Parklife after parties have already sold out. If you’re going, make sure your home for breakfast,” the text read. But as BBC News reports, Parklife fans like 19-year-old Ros Prior didn’t find the text to be, as organisers described, an “irreverent way to engage with festival-goers.”
“I just saw ‘Mum’ and I started crying. Even though it was only two seconds of sheer panic it was horrible because you just do think, ‘Oh my god. Is she still alive?'” said Prior, whose mother had passed away three years ago of multiple sclerosis. Prior shared the offending message on Twitter.
“I wrote an email to Parklife expressing how angry I was and took a picture of it and put it on Twitter. Since then people haven’t stopped saying they feel the same and Parklife can’t get away with this.” Organisers later issued a statement to those offended, wishing to “apologise to them directly.”
As the Manchester Evening News report, while many sympathised with Prior’s stance, tweeting, “Parklife are low, imagine the heartbreak people would feel if their mum has passed away,” others enjoyed the messages, writing, “Hahaha only just realised that text wasn’t from my mum.”
Parklife Weekender 2014 kicks off Saturday, 7th June at Heaton Park in Manchester, England. Snoop Dogg and Foals are set to headline a roster that features the likes of UK EDM duo Disclosure, Bastille, Splendour-bound UK trio London Grammar, and rapper Kendrick Lamar.
No parklife it isn't my mum texting it's you.. and I will try make breakfast! pic.twitter.com/BcGxpjee4x
— ChelseaBuckley_ (@ChelseaBuckley2) May 13, 2014
