Indie Fests Warn Of Legal Highs

Major festivals such as Scotland’s T In The Park, Bestival, Sonisphere, Secret Garden Party and Lovebox were among the festivals that flipped browsers over to pages explaining that “legal doesn’t mean safe.”

The Association of Independent Festivals says that last year deaths from legal highs jumped 80 percent, from 29 to 52. It puts the number of readily available legal highs – substances not prohibited by European law – to be close to 300.

“The substances have managed to fly under the radar purely by evolving faster than the monitoring bodies can regulate,” said AIF co-founder Ben Turner. “Banning it at our festivals is only part of the battle. We need to make fans aware of the dangers of legal highs and help them make safer choices when having fun on site.”

Maryon Stewart from the Angelus Foundation, a charity set up to raise awareness about the risks of legal highs, said they’re a “huge but hidden problem” because young people are acting in ignorance with no one measuring the harm.

At February’s annual Crime at Major Festivals Conference, Festival Republic chief Melvin Benn – who runs Leeds, Reading and Latitude festivals, among others – warned that event organisers need to make sure they have the health resources to care of those suffering from legal highs.

Benn’s festival banned legal highs five years ago and he also told the conference the ways he’s found to identify and deal with the sellers.

The festivals blacking their websites are reckoned to have a combined capacity of over 500,000 and a social media reach of some millions.

The other fests joining in the blackout included Global Gathering, Kendal Calling, Blissfields, Truck, Brownstock, Tramlines, Belladrum Tartan Heart, Shambala, Parklife and Eden Sessions.