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Elastic Artists client hijacks agency’s social channels as company falters

By | Published on Wednesday 2 December 2015

Elastic Artists

Manchester-based MC collective Levelz have hijacked the social media channels of booking agency Elastic Artists. The is reportedly heading into administration after the firm confirmed last week that “financial difficulties” meant a number of artists had not received payments for shows booked by the company.

As previously reported, a memo to clients from the agency said the business was “currently experiencing financial difficulties which have meant we are unable to release monies to clients for shows that have already taken place. We are exploring options to restore the company’s liquidity and to transfer the ownership of the business to a new team”.

It’s thought that the agency, which is best known for repping dance and urban artists in the live sphere, is now likely heading into administration, with the company’s website currently down. But its Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts have been particularly lively after Levelz – who were booked by Elastic and likely owed money – took over the accounts and posted messages like: “Sorry that @LEVELZMCR are having to apologise for all the missing fees and wages rather than Elastic themselves. Spineless”.

The group also posted a short video in which they pretended they’d kidnapped the agency’s creative director and were holding him ransom, though that video has now been disabled by YouTube because it constituted “a violation of YouTube’s policy prohibiting content designed to harass, bully or threaten”. To be fair, the last thing the Google video site needs just now is another controversy around a fake kidnap. Levelz-made videos do remain on Instagram though.

One of the Levelz crew used to work at Elastic, which is presumably how they got access to the firm’s social media logins and passwords. It’s slightly reminiscent of the time an HMV social media manager live tweeted the mass redundancies that followed its slip into administration in 2013, management having forgotten to change the passwords before beginning their firing spree. Though Levelz are taking it to a whole new level.

Given that Elastic Artists’ financial woes first came to wider attention through tweets from another of their clients, NTS DJ Alexander Nut, this whole thing is another case study of the extra challenges businesses managing crisis situations face in the social media age. It remains to be seen if and when the firm – or its administrators, as the case may be – can regain control of the social channels.



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