During the summertime, it isn’t uncommon for people to enjoy the outdoors with friends or go on a road trip. One popular activity during the summer months is to attend music festivals in all corners of the country.
These events can be incredibly fun, but there are certainly major safety concerns. Given that thousands of people converge on a single location to take part in revelry, festival organizers clearly need to be concerned about safety.
Reports indicate that at least two attendees at the Electric Daisy Carnival died while they attended the recent festival.
These two deaths are unfortunate additions to a string of deaths at electronic dance music festivals. Rolling Stone indicates that seven people have died at various dance festivals since 2010. Many of these deaths are drug related.
Of course, individuals are responsible for consuming drugs. At the same time, however, festival security plays a role in crowd control. If they are not doing thorough enough drug screening or turn a blind eye to drug deals or use, they are exposing attendees to danger. After all, people may be using drugs that aren’t what they’re advertised to be.
There are a whole host of other concerns at music festivals beyond drug deaths or overdoses. For example, large crowds could get out of control and people could become severely injured as a result.
As festivals continue to be a popular attraction, organizers may have to revisit efforts to make the events as safe as possible. Nothing can cut a weekend of fun short like a preventable injury or medical issue.
Source: Rolling Stone, “Second Person Dies After Electric Daisy Carnival,” Jon Blistein, June 24, 2014