More drug related hospitalizations and sexual assaults were reported at dance festivals over Labor Day Weekend, adding to the growing list of incidents this year at large EDM events.
I seems that no EDM event comes without some negative result recently. This last weekend, three sexual assaults and two deaths were reported during the holiday’s multiple festivals, adding to a quickly increasing pile of trouble for festival promoters and attendees alike.
Spin reported earlier today that two sexual assaults were documented at Philadelphia’s Made in America festival. The separate assaults on the women, both in their early twenties, happened outside festival gates, but obviously involved the event’s attendees. At El Paso’s smaller Sun City Music Festival, the El Paso Times reported 17 year old girl in critical condition after MDMA induced complications. Additionally, New York’s massive Electric Zoo festival cancelled its third day after two drug related deaths, thirty-one arrests, and the sexual assault of a 16 year old girl. Again, this was all in one weekend.
July and August’s festivals didn’t fare much better. In early July there were at least seventy drug related hospitalizations at Washington’s Paradiso festival. Later in August man died of a heart attack at Los Angeles’ HARD Summer, and house producer Zedd cancelled show in Boston after one death and two hospitalizations of audience members.
This is bad news for the people behind these large scale dance events. It remains to be seen what legal consequences may occur, or what solutions to this growing problem will be offered.
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