When 16-year-old German teen Thessa posted an invite to her birthday party on Facebook, she forgot one crucial part of the birthday invitation process — not inviting everyone on Facebook. Thessa forgot to mark the invite as private and not too long after, around 15,000 guests confirmed they would be attending the party. Luckily (and unluckily) for her, only a tenth of the confirmed guests actually showed, but still a significant number of uninvited strangers at 1,500.
When Thessa’s parents found out about the mistake and the 15,000 confirmed guests, they made her cancel the party, informed the police and went so far as to hire private security to help with what turned out to be the eventual 1,500 uninvited guests. Hamburg police spokesman Mirko Streiber said Thessa went into hiding when the guests arrived, but that didn’t deter the partygoers from celebrating the girl’s Sweet Sixteen.
Streiber says the police cordoned off the house and around 100 police offers were at the scene, including some on horseback. Though one might expect the party to have gotten out of hand with the amount of people that attended, many of the guests brought presents and cake for the girl, as well as signs asking “Where is Thessa?” The partygoers went so far as to repeatedly chant “Thessa, celebrating a birthday is not a crime,” which was assumedly in response to the large showing of police officers on scene. However, one wonders what kind of rhythm and cadence would make that chant easy on the ears. As one might expect, it was reported that the uninvited partygoers also brought a lot of alcohol.
One police officer was injured when a partygoer attempted to break the Mercedes-Benz logo off of his patrol car. (Yes, a police Mercedes.) Streiber said the scene was insane, but the night was mostly peaceful despite the large amount of uninvited guests and the reportedly copious amount of alcohol.
As for Thessa? Police reported that she wasn’t even home during the party and was off celebrating with her grandparents, like a true party animal.
Published: Jun 6, 2011 12:20 pm