According to loudwire.com, festival organizers and Live Nation will be launching an investigation after fans from this past weekend’s Download Festival began falling ill during the festival concerts. According to The BBC, organizers of the event mentioned that they had to shut down two of the food vendors at the festival after paramedics began to “see a pattern” of fans becoming sick
A spokesperson for the North West Leicestershire District Council has noted that there had been four calls from festival attendees and a total of six people that became unwell at the weekend metal festival. Also even more fans on social media had come forward describing feeling symptoms of food poisoning. The BBC spoke with some of the attendees about their discomfort and Will Ellis shared his experience by stating: “We got our food, sat at the benches in the village and enjoyed our meals not knowing what was to come.”
Ellis also mentioned that he woke up the next morning “with the most painful stomach ache,” and added that a case of diarrhea ruined his festival going experience for most of the next day. Another attendees Megan Souster, told the BBC that she had “never been so ill in my life,” starting to feel the effects on Saturday night and spending most of Sunday in her tent not feeling well enough to check out all the bands. “I was too unwell to make it to a medical tent. My partner had to care for me.” Souster explained.
Once assistance arrived to check on her, Souster revealed that she was asked what she had eaten, giving her the first notion that her case might not be isolated. “It has taken me four days to get better. Even now I still don’t feel myself,” said Souster.
Live Nation offered that all the food traders at the weekend festival were inspected prior to and during the event. A spokesman for the concert giant adds: “Two vendors were closed and removed from the site as they failed to meet the standards of Environment Health and the local authority. Download Festival operates a robust 24 hour welfare operation including staff and welfare tents to support unwell customers throughout the site.”
According to FoodPoisoningNews.com, reports from the medical tent claimed that “as many as 500 people” were affected by what was described as a “real food poisoning epidemic.”
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