If you haven’t been living under a rock then you’ve probably heard about the absolutely cock-up that was the Fortnite Live Festival. Now, event organisers are about to find out that trying to make some quick cash off the back of the latest global phenomenon without actually putting any effort in just isn’t cool, as Epic Games are suing them.
The organisers are a company called Exciting Events, who obviously saw the appeal that Fortnite has to kids and decided to try and cash in on it. The event, which was called Fortnite Live Festival and was advertised as the “Fortnite event of the year”, took place in Norwich, and tickets cost between £12 and £32. Parents and kids bought approximately 2500 tickets to the event only to be left unbelievably disappointed by the experience.
Attractions were bordering on embarrassing, with photos from the event showing a single climbing wall that fit three people, archery for four people, and—possibly most ridiculously—a “Cave Experience”, which was a truck with a tarpaulin thrown over the top. Attendees had quite obviously expected more for their money, but instead had to endure ridiculous queues for dreadful attractions, with organisers not even bothering to make any effort to dress up as Fortnite characters. Numerous attendees did manage to get their money back on the day, but the events Facebook Page has now disappeared, making it impossible for anybody else to try and get hold of the organisers to get their money back.
By the way, although the festival bordered on having absolutely no relevance to Fortnite whatsoever, none of the event was officially licensed, despite the fact that the games name, logo, and characters were used throughout. As you can imagine, Epic Games are pretty pissed off about the whole thing, so they have begun legal action against the organisers. In a statement to Eurogamer, Epic Games said:
“The quality of our player experience is incredibly important to us, whether it’s inside the game or at official public events like last year’s Fortnite Pro-Am. Epic Games was not in any way associated with the event that took place in Norwich and we’ve issued a claim against the organisers in the High Court of London.”
Let this be a lesson to any other event organisers that are looking to use the popularity of a franchise to exploit money from parents even if it means upsetting a load of kids – don’t be a dickhead. For now, I’m dubbing the Fortnite Live Festival as the Fyre Festival of gaming.
In happier Fortnite news, the games v7.40 Content Update is now live on all platforms.
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