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AlienStock festival cancelled to avoid becoming “Fyre Fest 2.0”
By Andy Malt | Published on Thursday 12 September 2019
A new music festival due to take place near Area 51 has been cancelled due to fears of a “possible humanitarian disaster”. Which might seem a little over-dramatic, although the whole thing was born out of a Facebook page proposing that people “storm” the secretive US Air Force base in Nevada in order to “see them aliens”.
Posted as a joke earlier this year, the Storm Area 51 proposal went viral, with two million people worldwide now marked as planning to attend and a further 1.5 million interested. With such strong interest, plans for a festival, named AlienStock, were launched. However, with the event now a week away, it has been cancelled.
In a statement, organisers said that the licensee of the event had failed to put a basic infrastructure for the festival in place, leaving concerns that it would become “Fyre Fest 2.0”.
“Due to the lack of infrastructure, poor planning, risk management and blatant disregard for the safety of the expected 10,000+ AlienStock attendees, we decided to pull the plug on the festival”, reads the statement. “The permit holder was given multiple opportunities to provide us with the proof that things expected at this festival were in place. In fact, she refused to provide to us, as agreed upon, contracts, proof of deposits or any paper proof of anything”.
It continues: “We are not interested in, nor will we tolerate any involvement in a Fyre Fest 2.0. We foresee a possible humanitarian disaster in the works, and we can’t participate in any capacity at this point. AlienStock is a brand that stands for unity and concern for like-minded people. It’s grown into much more than a location. It’s a phenomenon that can only promise absolute safety and peace, and we need to move the festival to guarantee that”.
Having initially promised that the festival would be moved to a “safe, clean secure area”, it has now been announced that a smaller scale event named Area 51 Celebration will take place at the Downtown Las Vegas Event Center on 19 Sep. Originally planned as a three day festival, the smaller show will take place over one evening. Sponsored by Bud Light – and with limited edition Area 51 bottles of the beer on offer – the line-up for the new event remains “classified”.
Tickets are free to “all beings 21 Earth years and older”.
