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Boiler Room had “no option” but to shut down festival

By | Published on Wednesday 9 November 2016

Boiler Room

Boiler Room has issued a lengthy statement about its Weekender festival at the Split Rock Resort in Pennsylvania, saying it had “no option” but to shut down the event mid-way through its second night on Sunday.

Actions of the venue’s security staff were “wildly inappropriate” in the searches of attendees, it says, and there was an “unexplained and unauthorised increase in heavy-handed policing and outward displays of aggression by Split Rock’s security team”.

“As is now well documented, our inaugural Ray-Ban x Boiler Room Weekender event was terminated early after issues with the local security and law enforcement”, says the statement. “Following an unnecessary display of force against attendees present, we had no option but to shut down the music halfway through the second night of the festival”.

It blames the problems in a large part on the venue insisting on using a local security team, rather than allowing Boiler Room to bring its own staff. “Split Rock steadfastly insisted on using local law enforcement and local security, instead of our intention of bringing in trusted staff from New York”, it said. “Those local law enforcement and security showed a shocking lack of respect and professionalism to our attendees. We established a detailed framework for how they were to act and keep the event running safety and smoothly; these protocols were consistently broken, and we will be investigating our recourse in this respect”.

Boiler Room is now working to aid a woman who was arrested, and another attendee who it alleges was assaulted by the head of security.

It concludes: “Boiler Room wholeheartedly rejects the approach taken by the law enforcement and security at Split Rock, and any kind of underlying intolerance and hatred that may have underpinned their aggression. Again, we are deeply disheartened by the situation that took place at our Weekender, and will be taking every necessary course of action to help those affected, and follow due process with the local police”.

Read the statement in full here, and Fact’s bleak review of the event here.



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