Fans ignored the band’s protests that the gig was not real – and that the prank gig was dated 2017 – and swarmed a Sunoco station in Dayton

“If you build it, they will come,” promised a certain film set in the US midwest. And so it proved on 20 April, when the fake promise of a nu-metal show – a fake promise made for 20 April 2017, rather than this year – drew a crowd of more than 100 people to a petrol station in Dayton, Ohio, on the chance that Limp Bizkit might turn up to play.

The story began with a man named Brian Baker, who earlier this week created a Facebook event called “Limp Bizkit to play 4/20 Secret Show”, suggesting the band would play the petrol station on Wayne Avenue on 20 April 2017. The news began to gain traction when the local website Dayton.com reported the item, as did the local NBC news outlet, prompting the Dayton Police Department to tweet: “BE AWARE: There is NO Limp Bizkit concert Wed 4/20 at Sunoco station at Keowee St & Wayne Ave. These ads FALSE.”

By that point, however, the event had gained momentum, with Limp Bizkit fans willing it to be true. In fact, willing it to be true so hard that even the band’s singer Fred Durst had to respond to the stories. One fan tweeted Durst asking: “Why are people sating that you’re supposed to be at a Sunoco in Dayton tomorrow? This is right by my house I need answers.” Durst replied: “NOT TRUE – don’t let them pull one on you.”

Fans, however, entered into the spirit of the event, designing flyers for the show – claiming it was sponsored by Monster energy drinks – and printing tickets. Ads appeared on Craigslist offering tickets – one claimed to have $50 VIP packages available to those who went to the Sunoco and bought a a Mountain Dew, two Slim Jims, a container of engine oil and two strawberry-flavoured Black & Milds – and Sunoco staff reportedly had to take their phone off the hook, so numerous were the inquiries.

WHIOTV (@whiotv) #LATEST: Dayton police had to return to site of fake Limp Bizkit concert to clear the site. https://t.co/km7GLDCIjJ pic.twitter.com/9VS6P4XWUo

Andy Rowe, who administered the Facebook event with Baker, told the Daily Beast: “I have never laughed so hard like I have these last two days, yet understood so little about why it’s funny in the first place. I keep asking myself, ‘Why does it seem like the whole world is bent on seeing Limp Bizkit play at this gas station?’ He said the event page had been receiving up to 10 posts per minute.

Then the night of 20 April the gig came round. Or, rather, didn’t. Enough people turned up at the Sunoco that the station’s owner called police asking for them to be cleared because they were blocking access to the business, according to another local news site whio.com. After the station closed more than 100 people were still there – even though Limp Bizkit weren’t – along with five police cruisers.

Twitter user @madison0001 filmed fans at the petrol station

Dayton resident Michael Pelaze knew the event was a joke when he went to the gas station because, he said: “I was hoping something fun would go down.” He told whio.com that people had been driving past the Sunoco singing Limp Bizkit lyrics from their car windows.

The last word, though, should go to the band at the centre of it all: “Props to the posers who got everyone going,” they tweeted.