Only six people showed up to the EU’s miserable £332,000 ‘metaverse party’

Posted on : December 2, 2022
Only six people showed up to the EU’s miserable £332,000 ‘metaverse party’
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    Anyone who's ever thrown a birthday party will tell you how nervewracking it is when barely anybody shows up.

    So spare a thought for the EU Commission, which spent thousands on a party in the metaverse—that only six people attended.

    The event, 'Global Gateway Gala', was intended as the finale of a £332k (€387,000) campaign to "increase awareness of what the EU does on the world stage" among young people on TikTok and Instagram, according to an EU Commission spokesperson.

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    However, journalist Vince Chadwick attended the gala and said he was one of just six people who showed up.

    Chadwick said: "I'm here at the 'gala' concert in the EU foreign aid dept's €387k metaverse (designed to attract non politically engaged 18-35 year olds).

    "After initial bemused chats with the roughly five other humans who showed up, I am alone."

    The metaverse event was funded with taxpayers money and was supposed to feature virtual avatars dancing to house music on a tropical island.

    Chadwick came up with a few ideas about why the event was not well attended, despite the EU spending so much money on the whole campaign.

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    He highlighted that it 'strangely' did not appear on Instagram or TikTok, saying: "Happy to be corrected but looks as if [the EU] launched the metaverse mid Oct and then tried to backpedal/go dark and hope no one would notice."

    Before the event itself, the Commission released a trailer which also failed to impress. Commenters said it was 'depressing and embarassing' and called it 'digital garbage'.

    The Global Gateway initiative hopes to spend €300bn in foreign aid through to 2027 in order to develop green and digital infrastructure around the world.

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    • European Union
    • Metaverse

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