According to Billboard, festival deaths are on the rise in the EDM world: drug-related deaths spike along with casualties of overheating, dehydration and accidental self-immolation. Billboard takes a look at whether ecstasy to blame, or if it is just the cost of doing EDM business.
So far, a total of 17 people have died at music festivals around the world this year . Many of those deaths came after revelers showed symptoms (dehydration, overheating) associated with taking MDMA, or Molly, the purest form of ecstasy commonly found at EDM events.
“If you have 50,000 people for four days at an EDM festival dropping a lot of ecstasy, all weekend, in the sun, in the summer, you’re going to net out at the end with someone not surviving it,” says one concert industry insider. “That’s just math.”
There is no question that the number of deaths attributable to controlled substances is on the rise, but dance music is hardly the only hub for excessive partying.
Still, it’s worth noting that until 2013, when at least seven festival attendees died of drug-related causes, the majority of news-making festival fatalities were accidental: nine people were crushed to death during a Pearl Jam set in 2000, 11 trampled at Morocco’s Mawazine Festival nine years later, and 15 at 2010’s Love Parade in Germany.
