Discomfort of the Day: Sudden Closure of EDM Festival TomorrowWorld Leaves Thousands Stranded in Rural Georgian Hills
Do you need more evidence for why huge music festivals sound terrible? Here you go:
Thousands of buzzes were killed when the five-day EDM festival TomorrowWorld was abruptly cancelled Sept. 27 due to rain. Without warning or exit strategy for the some thousands of folks who flocked to rural Georgia, the event organizers closed parking lots and the gates. Things got ugly.
Atlanta Magazine got to talk with some of the stranded ravers.
When Linda made the 30-mile trek yesterday from Midtown to Chattahoochee Hills for TomorrowWorld, she was ready for the rain, but figured the festival had a contingency plan in place for the 160,000 people expected to attend the five-day, four-night electronic dance music festival. But once Dutch DJ Hardwell wrapped up his headlining set, walking off stage around 1 o'clock this morning, Linda was shocked at what came next: a five-mile walk to a shuttle stop; a four-hour wait for a bus that never arrived; and a $200 Uber ride that got her back home at 7:30 a.m. Others weren't as lucky.
"Some people just gave up, sleeping on the side of the road, with no street lights," said Linda, an Atlanta resident, who declined to give her last name. "You had no cell phone service. It was a recipe for disaster."
Early Sunday morning, TomorrowWorld organizers said that only the 40,000 people "currently camping at DreamVille" would be able to enjoy the last day of the festival, leaving the rest of those 120,000 to figure it out.
Yikes.
@TomorrowWorld you have drugged/drunk people walking 5+ hours to their car with no cell reception sleeping on the road with no food/water
— ❁ Jess ❁ (@JessicaMarais_) September 27, 2015
TommorrowWorld organizers have said they would provide refunds but have not given out specifics on it yet.