Pitch Festival, a big outdoor event in Australia, was cancelled midway due to extreme fire danger — This will only become more common for outdoor music festivals as the climate intensifies
by marketrent
Pitch Festival, a big outdoor event in Australia, was cancelled midway due to extreme fire danger — This will only become more common for outdoor music festivals as the climate intensifies
by marketrent
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*It was clear from as early as Wednesday that the festival weekend would face significant fire risk.*
*The region is tinder dry: there has been no meaningful rain since the devastating fire that burned through the neighbouring township of Pomonal in January.*
*More than 300 firefighters are still working to watch and contain the remnants of the huge blaze that burned through Mount Buangorand threatened Beaufort.*
*By mid-week, with the weather forecast for a heatwave, locals were openly questioning the wisdom of continuing with the event. But the incentives to hold on and hope for the best appear to have overwhelmed common sense.*
*With one member of their audience dead, two more in hospital and others camping out in the gardens of the local town, it’s not surprising that scrutiny is now falling on Pitch Festival organisers, the modishly named Untitled Group.*
*With the news that the festival had finally been cancelled, I headed out to the festival site on Sunday afternoon to ask some questions.*
*When I drove up to the gates, I encountered the aggressive attention of Pitch Festival security, who accused me of trespassing (I was at the front gate, asking to speak to the media liaison).*
*Despite the cancellation announcement, buses were not running, and the attendees I spoke to told me they were told that they wouldn’t be arriving until the next morning. However, at this stage, security apprehended me and physically escorted me back to my car.*
*On the dusty road back towards Moyston were many stopped cars. One group of festival goers was helping a carload with a punctured tyre — three young men named Tim, Ben and Cooper.*
*“As I started the walk over to where the signage was, I talked to the cops that were there, and they didn’t know what was going on, so the police hadn’t even been told,” [said Tim].”*