After the rumors, speculation, and discussion, Ellusionist has released a statement with regards to the mystery behind the website going down over the weekend- nothing more than an overhaul of the website and rebranding of the Ellusionist brand.
The statement comes with a ‘teaser’ video with this caption at the end:
Magic has lost its way… we’re going back to nostalgia. Back to Mystery. Back to Secrecy. Back to Black.
The full statement (below) addresses the website going down, digital downloads, team members, and existing orders.
Why was this necessary?
We wanted to add a little mystery to this overhaul.
Last week we asked Brad to send a cryptic message, giving nothing away… Hinting at something coming. An error 503 on a downed site was the first clue. (An error code reserved for scheduled maintenance)
The idea was supposed to be something fun for people to work out, but thanks to online rumours, it spiralled completely out of control… Which we didn’t plan for.
However, a lot of you did see through that and correctly guessed what was going on. We have 20 years worth of orders, customer data and transactions. We have PETABYTES (more than terabytes) of footage, explanations and trailers. This all needed to be migrated to a new database, new servers and a new front-end. We changed everything.
If we’d started importing/migrating with orders coming in, we’d likely lose some data. We didn’t want customers orders and packages to get lost.
Ellusionist is a trusted company, so all of that had to be done offline over the weekend, to ensure no data loss occurred and we were compliant with all laws & industry standards.
While offline, we were also able to ensure no personal customer data was open to being leaked or compromised. It was the safest, most efficient way.
Just minutes before launch, our provider Cloudflare started to experience issues. This was not part of our campaign, we were completely caught off guard and locked out of our domain. This was affecting all newly launching stores on their platform, not just ours.
Some customers may still experience issues with the ‘www’ prefix, although Shopify & Cloudflare are aware of this. Purchases are 100% secure through https://ellusionist.com – they are working on the issue.
What about my downloads?
We apologise for any interruption with accessing your purchased tutorials. Nothing has vanished in the migration. They are all there. Safe & sound.
However, to authenticate your identity, we’ll require ALL current customers to RESET THEIR PASSWORD via this page. This is to ensure safe custody of your previous purchases. Stream at your leisure.
NOTE: We weren’t able to have you download all files before the switch, as our CDN (content delivery network) wasn’t working in the lead-up to our website switch.
What about my package?
Our warehouse is fully operational, packages have still been sent out and will continue to ship. No orders have been lost.
Why didn’t your team confirm any details?
They’ve all signed NDA’s (Non-disclosure agreements) and were legally obliged to not share private company information before the company announces it themselves. This is standard practice in all businesses… Nothing personal. Please don’t take it out on them.
What if I’m still angry?
To those who got angry over the unknown, we’d like to assure you that no artists or customers were harmed in the migration of our website. We didn’t start any rumours and we’re sorry if you believe them. We were vague, but some hijacked the event to spread disinformation.
This move is to benefit the experience of buyers and to elevate the promotion of super-talented artists.
