Imagine if you heard that there was a music festival taking place next August in Yorkshire that had a lineup featuring Liam Gallagher, Blossoms, Arctic Monkeys, The Courteeners, The 1975, DMAs and Richard Ashcroft.
That's a huge lineup, right? You'd be forgiven for thinking that it was too good to be true. You would also be completely correct. It is too good to be true.
That's right, the entire thing is completely made up. It is actually a brilliant hoax that is the brainchild of Lancashire-based student Ollie Yates.
After being set a challenge to create a social media campaign at college, Yates decided to see how many people he could trick into believing that the festival was really going to take place next year.
The answer is loads.
Within a short time of the campaign going live (he paid £5 to boost the post on Facebook) people started sharing and tagging their mates. In the end, around 500,000 people saw the line-up. Pretty good going.
Yates told LADbible: "The aim was to get a few reactions on how the post could be shared and how something that's so ludicrous [could] go viral, and actually get people to believe it.
"I didn't not expect the result I got in the end. I got the page to over 5,000 likes (which is now going down as I announced it wasn't real)."
He continued: "Over the course of it all I got 500,000 [people] to see the post through organic sharing and from them tagging their friends.
"We got thousands of comments with people tagging their friends as well as there being loads of people sharing it around.
"I also wanted to show how businesses really do impact what you see on social media and how you shouldn't really believe everything you see!"
Before you rush off to the comments section, we've heard it all before, trust us.
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Inevitably, with those kinds of numbers, some people started to realise that it was too good to be true.
Ollie added: "It did also reach Liam Fray from The Courteeners, who replied to a fan saying, 'Haha, no chance.'"
Suffice to say that as an exercise that was set for a BTEC Computer Science course, it has been a success.
Obviously, you might be disappointed that the festival isn't real - you're not alone in that respect, there are half a million just like you - but you have to admire the bollocks on anyone who managed to pull off this kind of stunt and fool that many people.
Ollie says that many of the responses to his wind-up have been positive - perhaps people can take a joke, after all?
He said: "I have had a lot of positive comments from people saying they hope I do well and that the final paper goes well, but I have also been told that they hope I stand on a plug."
"Overall it's been quite funny to watch people just be angry at the fact it's not real and also see them being impressed that I did it."
Featured Image Credit: PATopics: UK News, Music, Inspirational, Funny, Interesting
