How Event Profs Are Fighting to Keep Attendees Safe ​​During the Drug Overdose Epidemic

Over the past few years, COVID has been the biggest health and safety concern for event profs, but an even more dangerous threat continues to lie in the shadows.

Illicit drug use among attendees, particularly within the music festival and concert scene, amid the country’s ongoing opioid crisis has spurred event organizers and venue operators to take action. And with the summer festival season on the horizon, the need to keep attendees safe is even more top of mind. Drug fatalities topped 100,000 nationwide in 2021, with two-thirds caused by synthetic opioids, and many of those who die from these overdoses are younger than 50.

Stefanie Jones, harm reduction educator and advocate, works with organizations like the Event Safety Alliance, teaching festival producers and nightlife and music industry pros about harm-reduction strategies that are designed to lessen the negative consequences associated with drug use. President Biden and many federal and local health officials and physicians have voiced support for these efforts in order to curtail the record-breaking overdose deaths. But many groups remain underfunded, with some practices partially outlawed in many states.

Jones encourages event organizers to “be open to having a realistic conversation about drug use and safety. We have tried the prohibition ‘just say no’ approach, and I think everyone knows that that has failed.”

ONEbox (Opioid Naloxone Emergency Box) is a self-contained, video-enabled opioid overdose rescue response first-aid kit that contains two doses of the opioid reversal medication naloxone, along with personal protective equipment and video instruction that are activated when the box is opened.Photo: Courtesy of GibsonIn January, Gibson Gives—the charitable arm of instrument brand Gibson—announced that its TEMPO program will begin offering ONEbox opioid emergency response kits, which contain two doses of the opioid reversal medication naloxone, to more than 72 live music venues in the Nashville area. Gibson Gives’ TEMPO program (which stands for Training and Empowering Musicians to Prevent Overdose) is a partnership of 12 music industry-related nonprofits across the U.S. that provide training for using naloxone and offer a network for recovery from opioid addiction. Late last year, pharmaceutical company Hikma donated $1 million worth of naloxone to Gibson Gives.

“It's a life-saving drug, and people should have access to it everywhere, but particularly at music festivals and events where people are using substances, and there's a possibility for people to overdose,” Jones said.

Last year, Ohio-based nonprofit This Must Be the Place handed out naloxone, which is sold under brand names such as Narcan and Kloxxado, at large-scale events—from Bonnaroo to Burning Man—distributing almost 11,000 intranasal naloxone kits.

“Like so many other people, we have lost loved ones to this overdose epidemic,” said William Perry, director of This Must Be the Place. “When we saw how many people were dying from fentanyl-laced drugs, we asked ourselves, how do you reach the person who might only use once, or only in social situations, or does not even know the danger that they could potentially be in? How do you get to the people who might think that carrying naloxone is for 'other people’ and show them how easy it is to save a life? We wanted to find a way to make naloxone as normal to folks as Band-Aids or Tylenol.”

Perry said that, in addition to returning to the same festivals as last year, the group is adding 17 new festivals to the calendar, bringing the total number of events to 25—triple the amount of 2022. “We will have a presence both in the crowd and backstage at these events, and will be distributing over 20,000 naloxone kits that have been provided by Hikma,” he said.

Tom DeGeorge, co-owner and general manager of Crowbar in Tampa’s Ybor City and chair of the safety committee for the National Independent Venue Association, said that his staff educates themselves on “all our events to try to make sure we’re aware of any potential threats or issues. I think messaging, branding, and community involvement, as well as proper security goes a long way. Bad things can always happen, so you’ve got to do the absolute best you can.” DeGeorge added that he does keep naloxone on-site.

Jones recommended that event pros ​​”meet people where they're at and then find ways to encourage them to make safer choices about what they might be doing,” as well as promote any harm-reduction strategies as part of a festival or event’s messaging like on the website, via social media, and within the overall branding, communicating to attendees the kind of help that’s available on-site.

In October 2022, electronic music powerhouse Insomniac, which has been praised for its harm-reduction operations, announced a partnership with End Overdose, a nonprofit distributor of naloxone spray and fentanyl testing strips, saying it would begin allowing attendees to bring sealed naloxone spray kits into its events. Insomniac founder and CEO Pasquale Rotella took to social media to discuss the partnership and offer advice to festivalgoers.

Jones pointed out that festival producers will need to start building services such as proper staff training into their budgets. “We should use the pandemic as a moment to recreate what festivals and nightlife is about,” even if that includes adding a nominal surcharge to ticket prices to cover health and safety expenses, she said. The price for a two-dose kit of narcan is $150.

Fentanyl, the potent synthetic opioid that has been spreading among the drug supply, can kill people who unknowingly ingest it when it’s added to cocaine, heroin, or pills. Because of this, Jones and other harm-reduction advocates are also calling for the widespread use of fentanyl test strips at venues and festivals.

Drug checking equipment like the test strips has historically been counted as drug paraphernalia, which means it’s against the law. But some states are updating the legislation, including Tennessee, and decriminalizing fentanyl test strips. But even in states where test strips are legal, some festivals still won’t allow them because of concerns around liability or image.

Despite the altruistic efforts of groups like This Must Be the Place, concert promoters are often hesitant to partner with them. Perry explained that that’s understandable, saying that they usually have “concerns that what we are doing is completely legal.” He added that “as we move through so many states, they each have their own individual regulations that don’t always match up. Therefore, we have to do a lot of legal legwork in order to make it clear that this is done in a way that everyone is OK with.” The nonprofit has also worked directly with artists like Brian Weitz from Animal Collective and Waaves to distribute the opioid reversal drug and train staff at events.

“The first response that I usually hear to the concept of harm reduction is ‘isn't that just encouraging people to use drugs?’" Jones added. She said that festival organizers often worry that introducing harm-reduction services will put their licenses in jeopardy or strain their relationships with local enforcement agencies.

“We are existing in a moment of change when it comes to drugs and drug policy. I think overall as a country and globally, we are shifting from more of this prohibition-like approach to something that is more health based.” She added that the industry needs to have “conversations about what are the needs, where do we need to educate people, and what services can we provide. Hopefully that’s the mentality that is starting to show up in a lot of festival producers.”