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Facebook invite goes wrong as 5,000 gatecrashers turn up at a Dutch schoolgirl’s house

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

September 23, 2012 | 2 min read

Merthe Weusthius invited a small group of friends to her house in the small Dutch town of Haren to celebrate her 16th birthday.

However when she sent out invitations via Facebook she mistakenly left the event open, allowing over 240,000 Facebook users to see the invite which gave details of her address.

As news of the party spread Facebook users set up campaign to promote it, involving a dedicated website, a Twitter account, which received hundreds of thousands of hits, and the production of T-shirts featuring her face.

The party quickly became known as Project X Haren, inspired by the film Project X, released this year, in which three high-school students throw a birthday party that spirals out of control.

The local media poured fuel on the fire when they began reporting on the event, with day-trippers turning up to have their photograph taken outside the family’s home.

Police were put on alert and Weusthius was taken away from the house as the party approached.

By the morning of the party, Friday 21 September, 30,000 people had confirmed they would turn up. 5,000 followed through, transforming what was intended to be a quiet gathering into a full scale riot as drunk teenagers saw there was no house party to crash and headed into the town centre.

Shops were vandalised and looted, journalists were attacked, a car was set on fire and other vehicles were overturned, fires were started and supermarket trolleys were turned into makeshift barricades.

It took 500 riot police officers, equipped with helmets, shields and batons, over five hours to deal with the crowd. They made 34 arrests, and six people were injured, two seriously.

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