On September 26-28th, 2014, Sheila Turris and I had the opportunity to visit the largest music festival that I have ever had the pleasure to attend. TomorrowWorld’s lead emergency physician, Dr. Eric Salk (Medical Director, SFX Entertainment, Inc.), invited us down to visit one of SFX’s biggest electronic dance music event (EDME) of the year to exchange ideas on safety, health promotion, injury prevention, harm reduction and medical response at major mass gatherings. We have been sharing ideas back and forth over the last year, and this was a great opportunity to meet in person.
We also got to meet some of the key players with Dance Safe, and had a chance to interact with many risk management experts in the industry. The command and event operations center was like none I have ever seen… sadly, no photos in that space for security reasons.
There are a few differences in the medical coverage models between Canada and the United States, and as we learned from Eric, the models of coverage vary from state to state, and even within the same state depending on the service providers contracted at any given venue. Variability in service levels and models is something we have in common, and we are all committed to continuing to research into these issues in the context of mass gatherings so that we can better understand both the risks, and the interventions to reduce risk that are supported by evidence and make sense.
Much to do, much to do.
Several of my friends and colleagues have been asking me to post some pictures from the weekend, so what follows is a small selection of the almost 800 images and video clips I collected over an amazing weekend in Georgia. Enjoy!
A Stage Like None Other:
Colourful Characters Everywhere:
Considerable Attention to Site Detail:
For Privacy Reasons, only a few photos of Medical Areas:
A Memorable Time:
Dr. Adam Lund