In the wake of the untimely deaths of festival attendees Tracy Nguyen and Katie Dix last month, the Los Angeles County supervisors have imposed a series of new guidelines around promotional company HARD‘s upcoming events.
First of all, HARD Presents: A Night at Fairplex has been cancelled. The event was scheduled to take place at the same venue as HARD Summer on September 10th and would have featured performances by DVBBS, Valentino Khan, AC Slater and HARD founder Gary Richards as his stage persona Destructo, among others.
In addition, festival organizers must abide by a new set of regulations for HARD Day of the Dead at the end of October. Attendance will be capped at 40,000, under 21-year-olds will not be allowed on the festival grounds, and according to the SVG Tribute, HARD “will step up its security, its medical services and the amount of free water available. Live Nation is also required to produce and distribute drug education at the festival.”
The roughly 25,000 decrease in attendance translates to loss of profits in the ballpark of 2 million dollars for the promotional company just for HARD Day of the Dead alone – and that’s assuming the event still sells out after barring admission for attendees under 21.
As always, We Got This Covered encourages anyone attending HARD Day of the dead or any events like it to make their festival experience more about the music than the party – a lesson which anybody who remains in the music community for a long period of time must learn.