When summer activities go wrong: Are music festivals just too risky?

As many may remember, summer in the late 1990s/early 2000s was a time of famously huge festivals like Big Day Out and Summer Dayze. The Melbourne waterside “sheds” were not glamorous function locations but cavernous venues to big-name Euro DJs in front of whom thousands would dance away in the early hours of a Sunday morning.

Since practicing as a lawyer many years ago, I have been involved in a number of cases involving such events and festivals and I must confess now to worrying that my children will one day want to stand in a crush of thousands to try and witness their favourite performer.

These festivals throw up a number of legal issues for personal injury lawyers watching from inside their air-conditioned offices (me included!). Here are some examples of the types of risks that arise from these events for which legal advice may be sought:

In March 2024, the Pitch Music and Arts Festival was cancelled due to extreme fire warnings, extreme heat and the death of an attendee. The Festival had proceeded for two days despite the Country Fire Authority advising people to stay away. Notwithstanding, media reported that organisers told participants already at the festival there was no danger.
This raises an interesting question regarding the liability of organisers when attendees become unwell due to weather extremes and how closely organisers need to adhere to the warnings of expert authorities like the CFA. Public outrage was loud when a young man died at the Pitch Festival last year.

Many will recall the stampede at the Falls Festival in 2016 which reportedly put 60 people in hospital and resulted in a class action against the organisers. During the legal action, organisers admitted liability for the accident which was allegedly caused by narrow exits compromising attendees’ ability to exit safely.

In the United States, one of the most widely discussed cases occurred following the 2019 Astroworld Festival in Houston, Texas. During Travis Scott’s performance, a crowd surge led to 10 fatalities and numerous injuries. The incident prompted a significant number of lawsuits against Scott, the festival organisers, and various parties responsible for security, all alleging negligence and inadequate crowd management. This case highlighted the critical importance of effective crowd control measures and raised questions about the extent of responsibility that organisers and performers should bear in such tragic events.

In 2013, at Big Day Out, a crowd surge led to several injuries for attendees and organisers were widely criticised for insufficient crowd management. It has been suggested that incident contributed to the festival’s eventual decline as concerns about crowd safety and logistics continued. In 2015, two attendees at the Stereosonic festivals died raising the issue of how organisers manage the combination of drug use, crowd safety and security.

There is no doubt that these festivals offer an amazing summer opportunity to hear live music and enjoy outdoor events but the risks of these events are widespread. Organisers must ensure that they have proper systems (both reactive and proactive) to manage the inherent risk of large crowds in sometimes small places as well as the threat of weather, substance affected patrons, crowd movement. When there are failures in these systems and injuries occur, there is real potential for litigation to unfortunately follow.