Electric Blockaloo made headlines last week when it released a massive lineup block of more than 850 artists for its Minecraft festival. Just a few days later, the festival’s website is down, fanning flames of speculation that it could end up a disaster like Fyre Festival, except virtual.
Early Wednesday, Reddit user someBlueCows posted on the Electronic Dance Music subreddit, “Is Electric Blockaloo still happening? Website seems to be down.” Another user, THEpottedplant, referenced a recent post on the subreddit discussing the Minecraft festival as a potential online Fyre Fest and commented, “seems like they were right.”
Indeed, the Electric Blockaloo site would not load on Wednesday morning.
The technical difficulty or whatnot certainly prompts a second look at the subreddit post that emerged shortly after the lineup unveil last Friday. Reddit user Good4Josh2 pointed out that Electric Blockaloo, scheduled for June 25 to 28, was two weeks away and only a small number of the hundreds of artists had shared it on social media.
‘Fyre Festival Vibes’
Good4Josh2 continued to cast doubt on the organizer, Rave Family, and the business model. The festival offered $10 tickets and was set to take place exclusively on Minecraft, which costs $30 for those who do not already have it. Good4Josh2 wondered how many thousands of dollars the hundreds of artists would be paid, and how the organizers expected to make money when so many livestream festivals are free. And those were just a few of the logistics questioned.
“I wanted to bring this up because the more I look into it, the more fishy it sounds. I could be totally wrong—maybe it really is the biggest and greatest virtual festival ever,” Good4Josh2 wrote. “But for now, I’m gettin virtual FYRE festival vibes.”
Reddit user landonfleury who claimed he is the manager of Ace Aura, an artist booked on the festival, responded with several bullet points showing he has “no reason to believe that this event isn’t going to happen.”
As of Wednesday morning, the subreddit post on the festival’s website being down had not garnered much discussion.
Big Ambitions
Electric Blockaloo was the talk of the dance music community due to its especially enormous and incredibly hard-to-read lineup. Zooming in reveals big-name artists including Steve Aoki, A-Trak, Carl Craig, Claptone, Galantis, Jauz, KSHMR, Lane 8, MK, Nicole Moudaber, Nora en Pure, and ZHU. Also, Paris Hilton. The festival boasted 65 hosted stages.
The Minecraft festival is ambitious to say the least. So was Fyre Fest, which cast itself as a luxury music event in the Bahamas and wound up not only being fraud, but the subject of documentaries and now a noun for a festival shitshow.
Will Electric Blockaloo be a virtual Fyre Fest? We’ll find out, in eight days or less.