It was chaos outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on Wednesday night. A documentary about the Electric Daisy Carnival rave was ready for its world debut when a star in the film, DJ Kaskade, tweeted “Today(at)6pm in Hollywood (at)Mann’s Chinese Theatre. ME+BIG SPEAKERS+MUSIC(equals)BLOCK PARTY!!! RT!”
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened next. Kaskade’s followers, which number 93,000, took this invitation to heart and began showing up outside the theatre. Over 2000 people, some wearing lingerie and elaborate chandelier hats, swarmed Hollywood Boulevard expecting a party.
Things quickly went from good to bad when police arrived and tried to clear the street. According to eyewitness reports, people began throwing objects, vandalising cars and…. (gasp!) planking. Kaskade’s tweets took a turn from the jovial to the urgent as he tried to calm the crowd, “Everybody CHILL OUT!!! The cops are freaking out. BE SAFE AND LET’S HAVE SOME FUN!”
In the end, several people were arrested, several police cars were damaged and Kaskade learned a hard lesson about the power of the tweet. [CBS News and NPR and Twitter]