The Games

The Impact of In-Event Health Services at Europe's Largest Electronic Dance Music Festival on Ems and Ed in the Host Community

BACKGROUND

Electronic dance music festivals (EDMF) can cause a significant disruption in the standard operational capacity of emergency medical services (EMS) and hospitals. We determined whether or not the presence of in-event health services (IEHS) can reduce the impact of Europe's largest EDMF on the host community EMS and local emergency departments (EDs).

METHODS

We conducted a pre-post analysis of the impact of Europe's largest EDMF in July 2019, in Boom, Belgium, on the host community EMS and local EDs. Statistical analysis included descriptive statistics, independent t-tests, and χ2 analysis.

RESULTS

Of 400,000 attendees, 12,451 presented to IEHS. Most patients only required in-event first aid, but 120 patients had a potentially life-threatening condition. One hundred fifty-two patients needed to be transported by IEHS to nearby hospitals, resulting in a transport-to-hospital rate of 0.38/1000 attendees. Eighteen patients remained admitted to the hospital for >24 h; one died after arrival in the ED. IEHS limited the overall impact of the MGE on regular EMS and nearby hospitals. No predictive model proved optimal when proposing the optimal number and level of IEHS members.

CONCLUSIONS

This study shows that IEHS at this event limited ambulance usage and mitigated the event's impact on regular emergency medical and health services.

Mortality at Music Festivals: Academic and Grey Literature for Case Finding

Objective

Deaths at music festivals are not infrequently reported in the media; however, the true mortality burden is difficult to determine as the deaths are not yet systematically documented in the academic literature.

Methods

This was a literature search for case examples using academic and gray literature sources, employing both retrospective and prospective searches of media sources from 1999-2014.

Results

The gray literature documents a total of 722 deaths, including traumatic (594/722; 82%) and non-traumatic (128/722; 18%) causes. Fatalities were caused by trampling (n=479), motor-vehicle-related (n=39), structural collapses (n=28), acts of terror (n=26), drowning (n=8), assaults (n=6), falls (n=5), hanging (n=2), and thermal injury (n=2). Non-traumatic deaths included overdoses (n=96/722; 13%), environmental causes (n=8/722; 1%), natural causes (n=10/722; 1%), and unknown/not reported (n=14/722; 2%). The majority of non-trauma-related deaths were related to overdose (75%).

The academic literature documents trauma-related deaths (n=368) and overdose-related deaths (n=12). One hundred percent of the trauma-related deaths reported in the academic literature also were reported in the gray literature (n=368). Mortality rates cannot be reported as the total attendance at events is not known.

Conclusions

The methodology presented in this manuscript confirms that deaths occur not uncommonly at music festivals, and it represents a starting point in the documentation and surveillance of mortality.

TurrisSA, LundA. Mortality at music festivals: academic and grey literature for case finding. Prehosp Disaster Med. 2017;32(1):58–63.