Sight of fake camera too much for fame-crazy popsters

As another series of the X-Factor draws to a close, and Leona prepares to drift out of our living rooms and into obscurity, it seems fitting to bring you a tale of some wannabe pop stars’ demented ambition and lust for fame – and how it hijacked an innocent experiential event.

A crew from agency Impetus was promoting Virgin Mobile’s phone TV service using a fake television crew to conduct spoof vox pops on the streets of Nottingham recently.

However, the team were quickly spotted by an enterprising young disciple of the Malcolm McLaren school of band management, who had recognised an opportunity to put his “up and coming” new group in the spotlight, thinking the crew was genuine TV.

And although Liz and Lee, Impetus’s staff on the spot, valiantly attempted to explain that they were just there to promote the new Virgin mobile phone, the would-be pop stars kept asking to do a live acoustic set and even offered to buy all the phones in return for the exposure.

Finally, they launched into one of their numbers, thinking that this was their opportunity to hit it big.

A weeping eye-witness reported that: “They were all plugged up, playing loud and singing their hearts out number after number and our event managers didn’t have the heart to tell them that the camera and crew were duds and it was just a mechanic for a promotional campaign.” Fame. Who said it would ever be easy?

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