to ask if any of your DC got ripped off at the YouTuber event Hello World?

[BriechonCheese]

My DS(13) went to the HelloWorld event yesterday - which was billed as an "immersive event" run by Alfie Deyes from PointlessBlog. (This is probably a TL:DR so in short - the event was useless, thousands of children were crying. The event organisers are ignoring it. Vastly inflated YouTube stars put in minimal effort for the whole event and the special additions for the VIP ticket were changed in the days immediately before the event. Disabled access also a nightmare).

He saved up his pocket money and birthday money to attend and even paid extra for VIP tickets for him and his friend because his friend has been through a hard time of it. This VIP ticket was supposed to give him access to meeting some of his idols (I can't criticise him for his choice in idols - I liked Take That, East17 and Adam Ricket as a teenager). The day before the event they were told actually VIP holders wouldn't get what they were promised but would be given a tour of the event by one YouTuber and they now had to enter a competition to other meet youtubers.

It as a shambles and from the photos my DH took (he went with him) it seemed to be a room full of teenagers milling around having being told their idols wouldn't be doing formal meet and greets (as in the norm with YouTube events) but walking around ok and off during the day - so basically the whole place was gridlocked with people hoping to see someone famous walking around. The youtubers in fact seemed to all stay behind the scenes and Snapchat from backstage.

None of the children were getting what they were promised (rides, chance to bake with their idols, play games with them and loads of stuff) none of them enjoying it or being able to access the "immersive events", half of them were in tears and the other half were angry. There was a performance which was due to last 2 hours but the performers lasted less than 1hr 30 mins and the big names appeared for about 5 mins.

It turned out to be an arena where children paid to enter in order to queue with other children to buy over priced merchandise.
Lots of children were pushed and shoved by other attendees, security and staff - my DH saw one girl being lifted out of the queue having being pushed against a bench by a surge of people.
Worst of all, the tickets said under 14s would be seated, so my niece who also went and is disabled was excited she could attend and feel safe in a seat. It turns out, from staff, that the under 14s rule was applicable to concerts only and this wasn't mentioned before hand. She is able to stand but is in agony today as a result. Disabled access otherwise was a nightmare and many disabled attendees were excluded from 95% of the events (which ended up mainly being them getting to queue to look at stalls that were sold out or areas where they might see a YouTuber but in reality no one showed up).

Yesterday social media was trending with how awful it was and it has been completely ignored by the organisers and "creators"/youtubers both on the HelloWorld social media pages and on their own personal pages.

Does anyone else have DC who came home disappointed from this event? Is anyone else sick to the backteeth of these YouTuber "creators" putting in absolutely minimal effort to take cash from impressionable children?

Zoella, Alfie Deyes, Sprinkle of Glitter, Mark Ferris, Joe Sugg, Marcus Butler, Tyler Oakley and their little gang of white washed, hyper consumerism based idiots are banned in our house hence forth.

Thanks to all who suggested the credit card option. It was booked on DH's card so he is going to go that route.
Emails have been sent to the organisers, the official email, radio 1, the agents of all of the "talent" along with the arena and security for the "talent".
We are also going to contact Watchdog and whoever if is that we need to contact (someone mentioned up thread) about poor disability access.

We won't back down on getting a refund for not only my son but everyone else who was duped with this awful event that was peddled to children with lies.

Sorry but is that prase for Joe sugg? He could have earnt 6 figures for this event and was one of the stakeholders that would have had input into its organisation. I think it's expected he trys to give a good tour.

They put up to 100 people in the tour groups for this, so wasn't exactly the intimate tour suggested.

DD has met and got a selfie with Tomska 2 years in a row, just by paying General admission price to comic con in Glasgow, £15.
I'm not that clued up on YouTubers, but I'd say he's a good un.

You could also contact You and Yours on radio four. They quite often talk about similar rip offs

The thing that I find worrying is the increasing amount of young youtubers that are pulling out of school early to concentrate full time on YouTube. These are 14-16 year olds leaving school without any qualifications. YouTube is not going to last forever, what will they do then? A lot of them have never had "actual jobs" so once YouTube dies down they will struggle without any experience.

All these family vloggers children are growing up to think the world centres around them. It's creating narcissistic, entitled individuals who are taught to think their lives are so interesting that everybody wants to watch & hear about every little detail. They're all going to get a hell of a shock when nobody is interested in their channel anymore & they have to enter the real world, where they have to do full days of work & actually pay for everything they have.

I didn't know children were pulling out of school to do this?

We don't allow the SacconeJoly videos (family vloggers) in our house as I think they are dangerous. Surely there are working limits for performing children and they will have well exceeded them. All of their money is coming from their small children - their channel was nothing until she got pregnant with the eldest girl. I know someone who knows them and she has a distaste for the husband and suggests he will keep the wife having babies over and over as they are a cash cow.

I suppose - to play devil's advocate on that one - there's long been plenty of boys who give up on school to pursue a football career that never comes to fruition but leaves them aged 18 with no qualifications and no immediate prospects. Similarly, we tend to only hear about those for whom sacking off their GCSEs to form a band and become rock gods work... There have always been young people who had implausible dreams and made bad choices. I 100% agree with you on the ones who use their own children, though - creepy and horribly irresponsible.

YouTube JackMaate, brilliant video flaming HelloWorld. Says it like it is!

@BriechonCheese If you search 'why I quit school for youtube' in the search bar of YouTube a pretty shocking amount of videos come up of young people who have done just that

@MargaretCavendish yes that's a good point. I suppose why I feel so strongly against it is I believe they're not doing it due to a passion or a dream, like a footballer or singer would, I genuinely believe they see it as a easy way to make money. Obviously some youtubers have a specific "purpose" to their channel, e.g. Art, which probably is a passion but for the most part a lot of them just video themselves milling about.

At the end of the day it's their choice, i just think young impressionable people watch them & think cor if I quit school & do that I may make as much money, not the best message to send out in my opinion

The more I see about this event, the more it just seems like a giant scam. All those poor children who were so disappointed and probably feel cheated by their idols, and the poor poor parents out of pocket [kids too who have saved up!].

It reminds me so much of those winter wonderland places you read about every year that charge a fortune, then parents turn up and it's a mangy reindeer in a soggy field.

I too genuinely hope this is the turn of the tide against some of these Youtubers - I have respect for a few out there, but they are mainly the ones not making millions out of it and doing it as a hobby alongside a job. Unfortunately the Gleam crew seem to have been blinded by cash and have completely lost their way in terms of being relatable - their sense of entitlement is appalling.

There was a report on radio 1 news tonight at 5.45 OP? Sorry if that's been said, just scanned thread and thought I would let you know in case you didn't catch it.

Organiser denying it all, saying it would run again although some issues were being given on case by case basis.

It's a pity it was badly organised and badly run. I think youtubers can have a positive voice for those growing up. I love Tyler Oakley - he's a great voice for LGBTQ+ rights and his podcast that he does with his friend is humorous and informative. And individuals like James Charles represent give representation to the type of teenage boy who might not otherwise see anyone doing what they want to do - it makes it okay, which of course it is. He's not without his controversies, but I love his videos and I'm a grown woman! How many femme/makeup guru males are the for young men?

Having said that, I'm not keen on Zoella/Pointlessblog/CasperLee/JoeSugg/etc...I've only watched them if and when they collab with Tyler Oakley. Joe Sugg is funny, but not funny enough to keep my attention!

I hope those who paid out for a poor experience are refunded.

Ive just watched Jaack's video on Hello World and he's got it spot on. He's so right that this Gleam Squad is there to take your money and not any form of online best friend. If only more YouTubers were as honest.

Also said about Jason Perry deleting his Twitter after the complaints - I wonder if they'll all return to SITC next year when they realise their stock has fallen following this shit show

Aha I posted on Twitter in support of Jaack's video and he acknowledged my existence with a like! Surely thats what kids do this whole YouTube liking thing for, just to have them know who they are?

I am at that favourites video list - knowing bloggers professionally (not vloggers) I imagine she got at least 50% of those free or was paid to place them and got a tidy affiliate fee three months later.

I suppose yes, it is similar to boys dropping out for football which has been going on for years but this is all just so unknown and the goalposts seem to change. The ad situation right now means people who were making £10,000 a month in 2015/16 are now down to as low as £700! It's not a great move.

I didn't hear the radio 1 thing but I'll check it out, was it Newsbeat?

I can't believe the organiser has deleted his Twitter, what an absolute scam artist!

So much of this is making me angry.

Loving Jaackmaate's video. I recently watched his podcast video with one of Oli White's mate and found him very interesting. He's right that anyone who speaks out and questions the behaviour of social media stars is branded jealous or a hater. If you're unable to accept constructive criticism then it will eventually leave to bitterness and hate.

I work with brands, I gave MN a free warning that they were breaking rules on affiliate links and they disregarded it....

Zoella could be making an absolute fortune from those links every month. Maybe £100k in good months as all the products are expensive and pay super high commissioner of up to 30% as the markup is so high. She will get them all sent to her and ones that have a bonus commission for that month she will usually feature. She often only puts out a favourites video a month as it makes so much money for a couple of hours work and shes so lazy these days she doesn't even prepare much for the video. Such easy money.

I've used skimlinks for a client and on a site garnering 60k uniques per day we saw around £10-15k a month just from skimlinks. Other affiliates were used and were more lucrative but it tended to mean we needed to have constant correspondence with the brand to get codes etc., skimlinks was easy.

I can see how Zoella would be able to live off her affiliates with ease, even in her new fancy massive house.

Is it true she owns the house they live in and he bought the house next door? I wonder if both houses came up for sale around the same time or if the offered on the smaller house separately?

I have to say, I can't wait for Idubbbz to get a Content Cop done on this lot. I feel like they're on his list.

Zoella has now issued a statement apparently

www.wetheunicorns.com/news/zoella-hello-world-backlash/#UhF0xe8ZK8FUfb18.97

Hmmm I can't see a statement from Zoella other than tweets using her pre-existing illness (which I spoke about pages back) as an excuse for ripping off thousands of children.

These kinds of excuses might wash with children but they don't wash with parents, credit card companies and trading standards. We have a solicitor in our family who has raised eyebrows too.

Well that will teach me to just read the title of an article before I post I'm a first year law student myself OP-aspiring to be a solicitor- and have also studied law at Access to HE level and this raised a few eyebrows with me as well.