Festival safety risks range from medical emergencies and drug-related hospital transports to spiking, crowd crushes and foodborne illness. The figures below show how those risks have appeared in specific places and periods: they are not a single worldwide festival-safety rate.
Contents
- New South Wales higher-risk festivals
- Ambulance response and hospital care
- How the NSW figures compare
- Spiking reports at UK festivals and events
- Crowd-crush and mass-casualty records
- Foodborne illness at a festival
New South Wales higher-risk festivals
The Review of the Music Festivals Act 2019 Final Report records outcomes for higher-risk music festivals in New South Wales. The review covers festivals identified by NSW Health or the liquor-and-gaming regulator, so these figures do not represent every festival. The reporting periods are financial years.
Deaths varied substantially across the five financial years listed. There were 5 deaths in 2018/19, averaging 0.15 deaths per festival. The total fell to 1 death in 2019/20, or 0.04 per festival. The review recorded 0 deaths in 2020/21 and 0 in 2021/22, with an average of 0.00 in both years. In 2022/23, it recorded 1 death, averaging 0.04 per festival.
The same review recorded 30 intensive-care-unit admissions in 2018/19, an average of 0.91 per festival. In 2019/20 there were 26 ICU admissions, averaging 1.13 per festival. The 2020/21 record shows 0 ICU admissions and an average of 0.00. In 2021/22, there were 4 ICU admissions, averaging 0.40 per festival; in 2022/23, there were 21, averaging 0.91 per festival.
Hospital transports were more numerous than deaths or ICU admissions. The review records 255 transports in 2018/19, an average of 7.73 per festival, and 149 in 2019/20, averaging 6.48. It records 9 transports in 2020/21, averaging 9.00, although the official review notes that this average is based on one subject festival event. The 2021/22 figures were 28 transports and 2.80 per festival; 2022/23 had 132 transports and an average of 5.74.
Drug-related transport records also changed by year. In 2018/19, 159 transports were classified as likely drug-related, averaging 4.82 per festival. In 2019/20, the corresponding figures were 103 and 4.48. The review records 0 likely drug-related transports in 2020/21, or 0.00 per festival, followed by 15 in 2021/22, averaging 1.50, and 67 in 2022/23, averaging 2.91.
Urgent transports numbered 58 in 2018/19, averaging 1.76 per festival; 42 in 2019/20, averaging 1.83; 0 in 2020/21, averaging 0.00; 4 in 2021/22, averaging 0.40; and 31 in 2022/23, averaging 1.35.
Onsite critical-care cases followed a similar pattern in the review. There were 59 cases in 2018/19, averaging 1.79 per festival, and 43 in 2019/20, averaging 1.87. The review records 0 cases in 2020/21, averaging 0.00, then 4 in 2021/22, averaging 0.40, and 31 in 2022/23, averaging 1.35.
Ambulance response and hospital care
A separate Music festivals data report gives a more detailed snapshot from 27 NSW music festivals between 15 September 2018 and 13 May 2019. NSW Ambulance transported 212 patrons to hospital during that period. Of those transports, 130, or 61.3%, were suspected to be drug- or alcohol-related.
NSW Health examined 5 deaths at music festivals over four months, from September 2018 through January 2019. In its detailed review covering the period from September 2018 to 13 May 2019, it recorded 25 pre-hospital intubations. The same review recorded 25 drug-related intensive-care admissions and 20 additional drug-related hospital admissions.
The emergency response included resources positioned before events began and additional resources deployed during them. For the 27 festivals between 15 September 2018 and 13 May 2019, pre-deployed NSW Ambulance resources included 55 ambulance crews and 10 aeromedical retrieval teams. A further 120 ambulance crews were deployed during the festivals.
These figures describe workload and preparedness in a defined NSW review period. They should not be read as a universal probability that a festival patron will need hospital care, and the 61.3% figure concerns suspected drug- or alcohol-related cases rather than a laboratory-confirmed cause for every transport.
How the NSW figures compare
The annual NSW review provides several measures across the same financial years. Reading them together shows why a single headline number can hide important differences between deaths, critical care, and hospital transport.
| Financial year | Deaths | ICU admissions | Hospital transports | Likely drug-related transports |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018/19 | 5 | 30 | 255 | 159 |
| 2019/20 | 1 | 26 | 149 | 103 |
| 2020/21 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 0 |
| 2021/22 | 0 | 4 | 28 | 15 |
| 2022/23 | 1 | 21 | 132 | 67 |
The averages supplied by the review add useful scale. In 2018/19, the averages were 0.15 deaths, 0.91 ICU admissions, 7.73 hospital transports and 4.82 likely drug-related transports per festival. In 2019/20, they were 0.04, 1.13, 6.48 and 4.48 respectively. In 2020/21, the averages were 0.00 deaths, 0.00 ICU admissions, 9.00 hospital transports and 0.00 likely drug-related transports; the review says this year’s averages are based on one subject festival event.
For 2021/22, the averages were 0.00 deaths, 0.40 ICU admissions, 2.80 hospital transports and 1.50 likely drug-related transports per festival. For 2022/23, they were 0.04 deaths, 0.91 ICU admissions, 5.74 hospital transports and 2.91 likely drug-related transports. Because the underlying group is higher-risk festivals identified by NSW authorities, the table is a monitored subset rather than a rate for all music events.
Spiking reports at UK festivals and events
The UK government’s Report: Understanding and tackling spiking covers reported offences during a 12-week monitoring period from 25 June to 17 September 2022. UK police recorded 1,324 reported spiking offences during that period. Of these, 96 were recorded at festivals or events, equal to 7% of all reported spiking offences.
Among the 96 festival-and-event reports, needle spiking represented 65% and drink spiking represented 31%. These categories do not sum to 100%, so the reported breakdown should not be treated as a complete classification of every case. The figures are reported offences, not prevalence estimates for festival attendance.
For victims with sex details recorded, 73% were female and 26% were male. The average age of a festival-and-event spiking victim was 21 years, with a recorded range of 14 to 61 years. These demographic figures apply only to victims for whom the relevant details were available.
The same report includes a post-2022-season survey by the Association of Independent Festivals. Among its 92 members, 87.5% said they had a specific onsite sexual-assault and harassment policy. The survey also found that 92% had an onsite sexual-assault or harassment disclosure or reporting process. These are survey results about policies and processes, not measurements of the number of incidents prevented.
Crowd-crush and mass-casualty records
Crowd emergencies can escalate quickly when movement, density and communication are not controlled. The figures in this section are historical case records, not rates for all concerts or festivals.
The Texas Task Force on Concert Safety Report records that the 2021 Astroworld Festival crowd disaster caused 10 attendee deaths on 5 November 2021. More than 100 attendees were sent to hospital with critical injuries. The report also states that the concert continued for another 30 minutes after the event was declared a mass-casualty incident.
Historical records show that crowd-crush risk is not a new concert-safety issue. The Crowd ingress to places of assembly: Summary and proceedings of an experts’ workshop records that the 3 December 1979 rock-concert crowd crush at Cincinnati Riverfront Coliseum killed 11 people and injured about the same number. The same NIST workshop report records 66 deaths in the Ibrox Park stadium crowd crush in 1971.
The Astroworld, Cincinnati and Ibrox figures differ in date, venue and circumstances. They are best used as documented examples of mass-casualty consequences rather than combined into an overall festival risk percentage.
Foodborne illness at a festival
Festival safety also includes food and public-health controls. A World Health Organization report on Thailand describes a botulism outbreak at a Buddhist festival in 2006. Of 170 attendees, 152 developed symptoms suggestive of botulism. The figures were reported on 20 March 2006.
Among the 152 symptomatic attendees, 100 were hospitalized. Forty patients required intubation and respirator support. At the time of the WHO update, 0 deaths had been reported. These numbers describe one foodborne-illness event at one Buddhist festival; they are not an estimate of foodborne illness at festivals generally.
Together with the NSW medical-response figures, the UK reported-spiking data and historical crowd-crush records, the Thailand outbreak illustrates why festival safety planning spans emergency medical care, safeguarding, crowd management and food hygiene. Each dataset has a defined period, geography and scope, and those limits are essential when interpreting the numbers.