Excited partygoers flooded O'Connell Street, only to find no parade in sight. The confusion quickly led to crowded streets and sidewalks, disrupting traffic and eventually calling for a police response. Dublin's Gardaí, the national police force, were dispatched to manage the swelling crowd and urged people to disperse.

Hundreds of people in Dublin experienced a Halloween trick on Thursday, lining the streets in anticipation of a parade that never came. According to The Independent, the event—the Macnas Halloween Parade,

the Galway performance company Macnas. Sharing the video on X, filmmaker Bertie Brosnan said, "The SCAM Halloween Parade in Dublin City Centre (everyone was ghosted ) Definitely thousands, potentially into 10's of thousands, showed up. This happened on the ...

The website, he said, compiled information from about 1,400 Halloween events from all over the world. The nonexistent parade in Dublin was said to be put on by Macnas, an Irish theater group that has previously staged parades and held one this year in Galway — but not Dublin. (Dublin has hosted Halloween parades in past years, but not in 2024.)

Thousands of Dubliners showed up for a Halloween parade Thursday night and were left bitterly disappointed after they realized it was a fake event.

Hundreds of people descended on Dublin's O'Connell Street on Thursday night for a Halloween parade that didn't exist.

Deceived by an AI-generated Pakistan-based website that quickly spread online, thousands of people turned up in Dublin, Ireland, on Thursday night, lining streets for a Halloween parade that didn't exist.

Earlier on 31 October, thousands flocked to O’Connell Street in the hope of attending a fun Halloween parade. But later, they learnt from Garda and other sources that the event was never going to take place.