Mum Says Go To Parklife

In what the Information Commissioners’ Office has subsequently called a “distressing” promotional technique, the festival sent SMS messages to ticket buyers that appeared to have come from their mums.

“Some of the Parklife after parties have already sold out. If you’re going, make sure you’re home for breakfast,” the message said.

The bogus message led to the ICO – the body that protects people’s personal information – receiving 76 complaints, including some from people whose mothers had recently passed away. Ros Prior, a 19-year-old who received the message because she was one of the 70,000 who bought a ticket for Parklife 2013, told BBC News that she was shocked to receive a message from her mother, who three years ago died of multiple sclerosis.

“It said, ‘New message from mum’ and my heart stopped,” she said. ICO head of enforcement Steve Eckersley said it was a “poorly thought out piece of marketing.”

He said the message had caused “substantial distress” to some of its recipients and that it breached regulations as the identity of the actual sender was “disguised or concealed.”

The ICO said one festival-goer who contacted them had kept the number of his recently deceased mother in his contacts and was extremely “distressed” when he received the “unprofessional and disgusting message.”

A spokesman for Parklife said: “The communication was intended as a fun way of engaging festival-goers, however the festival acknowledges that this was not an appropriate theme for everyone.”