Overview

REP Festival 2023 was meant to be a normal Brazilian rap music festival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. However, due to a lack of infrastructure, performers backing out and a tropical storm hitting the region where the festival took place, the event was widely deemed a disaster, with the storm essentially creating a flood zone in which snakes and other animals were spotted by the attendees. The events that occurred at REP Festival resembled the Fyre Festival fiasco in May 2017.

History

Known as the biggest national rap festival^[1] in Brazil, REP Festival^[2], promised two days of concerts in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on February 11th and 12th, 2023. It was the third edition of the festival in Brazil, which received an estimated 100,000 attendees.^[3]

Highlights

On February 1st, 2023, the REP Festival announced on its Instagram^[4] account that the location of the event would change place, which led to complaints and memes on social media, as people who bought tickets felt confused and irritated with the alteration two weeks prior to the festival occurring. On February 2nd, 2023, Twitter user @ketchupnoarroz^[5] shared a REP Festival Instagram story showing how inaccessible the new location is, saying this is her first time seeing a festival saying "don't come!" Her tweet received 3,444 likes and 977 retweets in two weeks (seen below).

rep festival o primeiro festival que diz: compre o ingresso e NÃO VENHA pic.twitter.com/zHKJIOPx9P

— 🥫 (@ketchupnoarroz) February 2, 2023

REP Festival 2023

The 2023 edition of the REP Festival started on February 11th with a tropical storm hitting the event's location,^[6] damaging the structure and flooding the region close to the stages. Attendees complained about lots of mud, precarious structure, snakes in the middle of the crowds and puddles of water during the concerts. Twitter^[7] user @zzmx21 spotted a snake covered in mud at the festival, receiving 787,200 plays and 9,100 likes in one day (seen below).

cobra no rep festival kkkkkkkkk pic.twitter.com/ZWs8SC3plO

— ‘ (@zzmx21) February 12, 2023

Another tweet by Twitter^[8] user @BiodiversidadeB focused on content about Brazilian biology, showing several other snakes that were seen at the festival. The post, from February 12th, 2023, garnered 43,700 likes and 3,301 retweets in a day.

As cobras do REP FESTIVAL 🐍

Na primeira imagem, um filhote de jibóia, nas outras duas fotos, conhecidas popularmente como cobra-d’água. Todas inofensivas 🐍 pic.twitter.com/E7uW897HXe

— Biodiversidade Brasileira (@BiodiversidadeB) February 12, 2023

One of the singers performing at the festival stopped his performance to notify REP Festival's staff about the snakes seen by the audience^[9]. TikTok^[10] account @cortes.cut shared the moment (below, left) rapper MC Cabelinho tried to help the audience, receiving 2.3 million plays and 285,900 likes in one day. TikTok^[11] user @anaadtr_ used the Festival ad talking about the structure of the event to show the real situation the audience had to deal with. Her post garnered 2.5 million plays and 355,200 likes in one day (below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References