China wowed the world with a waterfront light show New Year’s Eve on the Bund, attracting international coverage of the event from the likes of the New York Times and SF Gate. The only problem? The 2,000-drone strong New Year’s Eve spectacular didn’t actually happen — not on New Year’s Eve, anyway.
After puzzled Shanghai residents and others who had been in attendance at the light show-that-wasn’t responded to the coverage alleging they had witnessed no such spectacle on the Bund New Year’s Eve, a Shanghai TV station admitted that the broadcast of the event had been rehearsed and pre-recorded on December 26 and 27 due to safety concerns about New Year’s Eve overcrowding on the Bund, the Associated Press reported.
I was in the Bund on New Years Eve right in that time and nothing happened. All the drones display is fake.
— Abraham Pérez🇪🇸 (@AbrahamPrez25) January 1, 2020
This blows my mind because it’s 100% Chinese fake news. We stood outside last night for a show that never happened lol
Shanghai Welcomes 2020 With Spectacular Drone Light Show https://t.co/g7zzEvjHQc via @YouTube
— Patrick Cox (@PatrickCoxII) January 1, 2020
“Due to the high crowd at the Bund on New Year’s Eve, watching the drone show may cause safety problems, so the rehearsal and recording time of the drone was moved forward,” the station said in a statement.
“This blows my mind because it’s 100% Chinese fake news,” tweeted Patrick Cox, a journalism student at the University of Missouri. “We stood outside last night for a show that never happened lol.”
Overcrowding has been a subject of major concern for Shanghai’s New Year’s Eve events since a December 31, 2014 stampede on the Bund resulted in 36 deaths and 46 injuries, so, fake news allegations aside, the pre-recorded show was probably a good call.
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