Mayor of Horsens apologises for morbid book fair campaign

Some have called it “distasteful” and “bad publicity”

Lucie Rychla

Mayor of the east Jutland town of Horsens took to Facebook to apologise with ‘deadly sincerity’ for a morbid campaign used to woo people to the town’s upcoming crime book fair.

Peter Sørensen said the city should have “remembered the nerves of people who do not love a good mystery” before they created fake murder investigation scenes in the local park and at the Aarhus central station.

“Distasteful” and “terrible”
Some Danes could not stomach the sight of the dead bodies or bloody fingers and have called the campaign “distasteful”, “terrible” and “bad publicity”.

“I am horribly sorry for that,” Sørensen apologised.

“Although we look awfully much forward to the fair we should have ‘mur’derated ourselves a bit.”

The macabre campaign was created by the advertising agency Superego and featured fake crime technicians investigating fake crime scenes with fake dead bodies as well as “lost” bloody evidence lying around.

Largest crime book festival
The crime book festival (Krimimessen) takes place this weekend at the old state penitentiary in Horsens called Fængslet.

It was first held in 2001, when only about 200 guests and five Nordic authors attended the fair.

Since then the fair has grown into the largest crime book festival in the Nordics and this year some 6,000 visitors are expected to come.

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