Chaos descends on California beach town as 2,500 people show up for TikTok party invite

A TikTok birthday party invitation sparked a 2,500-person celebration in Huntington Beach on Saturday night, leading to 150 arrests, California police say.

“When something goes viral in Huntington Beach it always brings the biggest crowds that are crazy,” Natalie Rosso wrote on an Instagram video of the chaos.

The party began on a beach but moved into downtown later in the evening, KABC reported.

“As the crowd size continued to grow rapidly, large groups (dispersed) into various locations throughout the area, throwing bottles, rocks, fireworks, and other items at officers,” Huntington Beach police said in a statement, according to CNN.

The party was billed in a TikTok video as “Adrian’s Kickback,” apparently after a song by Adrian Hour, an Argentinian DJ and music producer, Deadline reported. It’s not clear whose birthday the party celebrated.

The video generated more than 3 million views, according to the publication. Police said they had been monitoring social media threads on the party plans.

Some party-goers even turned up Friday for a pre-party event.

“It’s like don’t you remember when you were young? You just want to go and have fun, have parties, and we kind of lost that this year because of COVID,” party-goer Erica Ramirez told KCBS.

Police declared a curfew at 11:30 p.m., the Los Angeles Times reported. Officers arrested 121 adults and 28 juveniles on charges including vandalism, failure to disperse, curfew violations and fireworks offenses.

No serious injuries were reported but some downtown Huntington Beach businesses were vandalized.

This story was originally published May 23, 2021 at 3:10 PM with the headline "Chaos descends on California beach town as 2,500 people show up for TikTok party invite."