ChatGPT confirmed a fish soup festival that doesn’t exist, and hundreds of tourists showed up

Hundreds of tourists rolled into the tiny Romanian commune of Jurilovca over the weekend of September 4-6, expecting to eat traditional fish soup, listen to live music, and soak in the atmosphere of the Lipovenian Borscht Festival. There was just one problem: the festival didn’t exist.

The event had been canceled since 2025. No one in local government announced it. No one organized it. No one set up a single stage or soup pot. But ChatGPT said it was happening, travel agencies sold tickets, and more than ten buses plus a parade of private cars descended on a commune that had absolutely nothing planned.

How an AI hallucination became a real-world traffic jam

Mayor Eugen Ion of Jurilovca took to Facebook to explain what happened. The Lipovenian Borscht Festival had been a genuine cultural institution for years, rooted in the traditions of the Lipovan people, a community of Russian Old Believers who settled in Romania’s Danube Delta region. The festival drew large crowds with its signature fish soup and folk performances.

Then budget austerity hit. The local administration suspended the festival starting in 2025, citing financial constraints. There were no plans, no announcements, and no preparations for a 2026 edition.

According to the mayor, travel agencies promoted trips to the festival without ever contacting local organizers to verify whether it was actually taking place. Some apparently relied on outdated promotional materials that still circulated online. When prospective tourists did their own due diligence by asking ChatGPT whether the festival was happening, the AI confidently confirmed it. Ion tested this himself and received an affirmative response from the chatbot, which apparently processed old travel agency promotions and commercial content as reliable, current information.

What the mayor wants you to know

Ion’s public statement carried a straightforward message: verify information through official sources before making travel plans based on what AI chatbots or social media posts tell you. The mayor also pointed a finger at the travel agencies themselves, noting that some had marketed and sold trips to the festival without performing even the most basic due diligence. A single phone call to the commune’s administration would have prevented the entire fiasco.

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