Some visitors to Yuga Labs' ApeFest event in Hong Kong report experiencing eye burn and blame the lighting; the Bored Ape creator acknowledges the situation
- Bored Ape digital collectibles among most popular in crypto — Yuga Labs organized ApeFest event in Hong Kong last week
Bloomberg
Context & Ripple Effects
Yuga Labs' Bored Ape brand had already faced trust tests in the digital realm, including a Discord compromise that led to stolen NFTs and reported SEC scrutiny of its NFT and ApeCoin sales. ApeFest extends that reputational burden from online community management to an in-person brand experience.
The incident matters because live events turn a collectibles community into a consumer-facing operation: safety, vendor oversight and the response to attendee complaints become part of the brand promise.
First-order effects
Yuga Labs must address affected attendees' concerns and account for how lighting was selected and operated at ApeFest; its acknowledgment puts the issue squarely on the company’s event-management response.
The immediate impact is reputational for Yuga Labs and Bored Ape among attendees and prospective event participants, rather than a change to the underlying NFTs themselves.
Second-order effects
Future Yuga Labs events and their production partners face pressure to tighten lighting and venue-safety checks. Later coverage identifying UV lights as the likely cause gives that review a specific operational focus.
Community trust may become more contingent on how quickly Yuga communicates and remedies real-world failures, adding an offline service dimension to a brand already shaped by reported regulatory scrutiny.
Third-order effects
If NFT brands continue building loyalty through physical gatherings, they will increasingly be judged like conventional entertainment and consumer businesses, with event safety and incident response becoming core governance issues.
The broader legitimacy challenge for crypto-native brands is that mainstream-facing experiences create accountability expectations that cannot be handled solely through online community channels.
The trend: Crypto-native collectibles brands are evolving into live consumer brands, bringing conventional operational-safety and reputation risks alongside digital-asset governance issues.
@Feld4014 I woke up at 04:00 and couldn't see anymore. Had so much pain and my whole skin is burned. Needed to go to the hospital. The doctor told me the uv of the lightning of the stage did it. It has the same effect as sunlight. Still can not see normally..
Anyone else's eyes burning from last night? Woke up at 3am with extreme pain and ended up in the ER. I saw a couple reports but just trying to figure out if there was a common thread.
@Feld4014 I got it as well. Went to bed at 1:30, woke up at 5 eyes burning. I wasn't that close to stage, but hearing this bubble rumor. Also hearing it can just be particles in the air in HK. I went to the hospital this morning and got basically zero help...
@Feld4014 I promise, it was really bad, so I had to go to the hospital. After they cleaned my eyes and gave me medicine , I'm feeling little better now.
[For information purposes only] So far, 30 hours since woke up with severe eye burn, I've visited emergency hospital and eye clinic and spent there a total of 6 hours. Got diagnosed with “photokeratitis over both eyes, accident related” with prescribed steroid eye drops and eye..…
Woke up in the middle of the night after Apefest with so much pain in my eyes that I had to go to the hospital. I've seen several tweets about it Doctor told me it was due to the UV from stage lights. I go to festivals often but have never experienced this I try to understand...
I've seen several photos of the stage from this and these vertical lights are the same colour in all of them (ie they're not RGB LED tape) please tell me some moron didn't use sub 300nm UV again ?!? [image]
Not even 1% like bro who cares?? Hahahahahahahaha How The Fuck Is Blindness Real Hahahaha Monkey Just Walk Away From The Screen Like Monkey Open Your Eyes Haha [video]
Imagine going to a foreign country thousands of miles away to meet up with thousands of friends you made on the internet and make memories that last a lifetime. None of this was on my bingo card. Blessed to be part of the club. Hope everyone enjoyed themselves at Apefest. We...
re: bored apes with eye injuries from apefest 6 years ago in Hong Kong, hypebeast had a party, 3rd party contractors installed disinfecting UV lights, instead of stage lights, & people had similar eye injuries, burning, blindness, photokeratitis it's possible this happened [image…
Not a single article written about YugaLabs social lead being fired for racism. Not a single article about ApeFest attendees being blinded and scalded by literal laser beams. The crypto media complex is a marketing mafia. It has ZERO to do with news or current events.
Apes, we are aware of the eye-related issues that affected some of the attendees of ApeFest and have been proactively reaching out to individuals since yesterday to try and find the potential root causes. Based on our estimates, we believe that much less than 1% of those...
THE BORED APES THEW A PARTY IN HONG KONG. THEY ANNOUNCED A MARKETING PARTNERSHIP WITH BMW THEN ACCIDENTALLY SENT HALF THE CROWD TO THE ER WITH OVERPOWERED UV LIGHTING. THIS IS THE COOLEST THING THE BORED APE TEAM HAS EVER DONE.