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Westfield has long captured the true spirit of Christmas… helping you rack up enormous debt on a whole pile of crap you didn’t need throughout the year, and likely won’t need next year either.
But the retail centre giant took Christmas spirit to a whole new level in western Sydney on Monday evening, landing five people in hospital and injuring 12 after dropping hundreds of balloons filled with free shit onto a crowd, and causing a stampede.
Westfield Parramatta promoted the Christmas special event as a “33-hour shopping marathon” and promised to release thousands of balloons filled with gift cards and other prizes at midnight.
The promotion was intended to “keep the party going throughout the night”, promising the balloons would be “filled with Westfield gift cards, retailer and partner prizes, retailer gift vouchers plus exclusive offers to help you shop till you drop all night long!”
You can watch ABC footage of the event here, although a warning, it’s not going to strengthen your faith in humanity.
This probably won’t either… one participant in the crush, Lauren Borg of Sydney, told media she queued for about half an hour to be part of the event, but that it wasn’t worth the injuries because all she got was a two-for one-coffee voucher (which expired that night) and a free day’s valet parking (she doesn’t own a car).
But in keeping with that other new spirit of life – parlaying anything and everything into online fame – Ms Borg, a “Hooters Girl at Hooters Australia”, is now promoting her appearance in Australia’s lowest media outlet (Daily Mail) via her Facebook page, and directing interested media to ‘speak to her manager’.
In any event, Merry Christmas folks.
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