If you've been to a music festival, you already know that it's no place to witness healthy behavior. These sorts of things only get reported when festival security is dead-set on busting wrongdoers, and that's exactly what happened at the Field Day in Sydney, Australia on New Year's Day.
There were 20,000 in attendance at the show, and 140 were arrested for something involving drug possession, which by our liberal-arts degree comes out to .07 percent of those in attendance. Not terrible, but Australia events have started to gain a reputation for featuring plenty of busts. The Stereosonic Sydney concert had 100 arrests, and Stereosonic Melbourne had 139. Two men at Field Day were arrested for having 35 ecstasy pills between them, and a large amount of cash to boot (a good indication that dealing was planned). The rise in security tension at Australian events may stem from the death of a concertgoer at Defqon-an electronic music event-held in September in Sydney.
Field Day did somewhat boast a lineup that heavily indicates drug use to police. EDM/dubstep DJ's such as Flux Pavilion set off red flags everywhere due to an unfortunate number of overdose deaths at EDM events during 2013. Wiz Khalifa doesn't help his case by featuring hit singles such as "Roll Up," even if marijuana wasn't the main target of concert security.
Still, despite the efforts of police, concertgoers managed to get themselves into plenty of trouble with assistance from substance abuse. Twenty-two fans were kicked out of the festival for disorderly conduct and intoxication. The most notorious example, which has already been reported by many media sources, was the young man who climbed, and fell from, stage rigging during A$AP Rocky's performance. His injuries were listed as "serious but not life threatening."
Rocky reportedly followed the fall with his apropos hit "F----n' Problems."
