Dutch police brace after teen's Facebook party goes viral

project-x_photo.jpg.crop_display.jpg

Police in a sleepy Dutch town braced on Thursday for an invasion of party-goers after a teenager's birthday invite on Facebook went viral, prompting thousands of replies.

Officers in Haren near the northern city of Groningen were on high alert after the schoolgirl posted a message inviting friends to her 16th birthday party on Friday, but forgot to mark it as a private event.

The situation is potentially so out of control that authorities are mulling holding their own party to entertain, and contain, the overflow.

"She posted the invitation on Facebook and sent it to friends, who then sent it to other friends and soon it spread like wildfire across the Internet," Groningen police spokeswoman Melanie Zwama told media.

"Now thousands of people have indicated that they might be attending," she said, adding: "We are taking extra measures, but what they are I'm not at liberty to tell you."

Dutch mass-market daily De Telegraaf reported that 24,000 people received the invitation, of whom 2,400 already responded that they would come to Haren, population 18,000, for the party.

The paper said the Haren town council has dusted off emergency plans should its leafy residential streets be "flooded by party-goers."

Several websites have already sprung up dedicated to the party and referring to 2012 US teen film Project X - about a suburban birthday party getting out of control after an invitation goes viral.

One site referred to Friday's party as 'Project X Haren', counting down the seconds to the event and claiming 150,000 people have been invited. It also published the party's address, adding 'By all means bring some friends!'

Another site is already selling T-shirts for 23 euros ($29) emblazoned with 'Project X - Haren' and featuring a crude logo of a man on all fours drinking from a bottle.

But police have posted on the same site: "This is an urgent call by police and the town council. Do not come to Haren on Friday night. Police are ready to stop any disorder."

Haren was on Thursday considering holding its own party to 'halt any irregularities' at the birthday party, Dutch news agency ANP said.

"But it stressed there are no concrete plans as of yet, although it would be considered as an option," the report added.

Previously 'Project X' parties have run riot in different parts of the world including Germany, Australia and especially the United States, where teens wrecked an unoccupied Texas home causing damage of up to $100,000.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/190127" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: &lt;a&gt; &lt;em&gt; &lt;strong&gt; &lt;cite&gt; &lt;code&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;ol&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;dl&gt; &lt;dt&gt; &lt;dd&gt;</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-10ade22ce81a8fa2306bedc66e69c232" value="form-10ade22ce81a8fa2306bedc66e69c232" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="80033020" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

I want to begin with a little story that was told to me by a leading executive at Aptech. He was exercising in a gym with a lot of younger people.

Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen didn’t make the cut. Neither did Shaji Karun’s Piravi, which bagged 31 international awards.