In what sounds like a recipe for the worst comedown ever, scores of TomorrowWorld music festival attendees were left stranded overnight at the site, after organisers stopped allowing cabs, Ubers and shuttle buses to reach punters at pick up points due to wet conditions.
Unable to leave the water logged 8,000 acre farm after Hardwell‘s Saturday night closing set, festival-goers stood in the cold rain for hours, some even sleeping where they stood in the mud, while others walked five to 10 miles to escape the festival and the weather.
Blame for the situation has been evenly divided between Mother Nature and poor planning on the part of organisers. In fact, the team behind TomorrowWorld were so unprepared for the weather conditions, they were forced to close the third day of the festival to commuters, with only the 40,000 or so campers still on site able to attend out of an estimated audience of 190,000.
“Continuous rainfall over the last three days has severely limited capacity of the parking lots, entrance roads and drop off locations in and around the festival site,” organisers announced early Sunday.
“The experience of the TomorrowWorld visitors is always number one priority, so TomorrowWorld was forced to close all daily parking lots and drop off locations. TomorrowWorld regrets that festivalgoers with day tickets, guest list tickets, and anyone not already camping at DreamVille will unfortunately not be able to access the festival.”
The festival goer who took the above photo, later re-posted by EDMPocahontas, was one of the stranded attendees, the 30 year old taking the photograph above of her younger sister and friend sleeping on the ground. Speaking to Mashable she blamed organisers and transportation companies, claiming that after leaving the festival at 12:30am and waiting for a shuttle for two hours she was told to walk several miles to the next checkpoint for more buses.
“It was unfair for them to tell us to ‘keep walking, there are shuttles a few miles down the road’ when they already knew all of them had been canceled,” she said. Plus, after all that, there was no transport at the checkpoint and her husband, who didn’t attend the festival, had to come and pick her and her friends up at 7am
She was hardly alone however, with a horde of attendees taking to social media to detail their nightmarish experiences and vent their frustrations, which you can read below.
TomorrowWorld organisers have apologised for “the inconveniences due to the weather conditions and to all who couldn’t be part of the 3rd day” and are offering punters refunds for the festival’s final day.
“You are the true People of Tomorrow and deserve all the respect in the world,” they added.
Friends, Today – Sunday September 27 – Mother nature has decided otherwise… TomorrowWorld will only be accessible to…
Posted by TomorrowWorld on Sunday, 27 September 2015
@TomorrowWorld last night when you wouldn't let shuttles take us fucking home pic.twitter.com/OE6gUKWmk2
— pocahontas (@EDMPocahontas) September 27, 2015
Lesson to @TomorrowWorld The ultimate experience doesn't end at the last song. Leaving 10k people #stranded will be all I remember.
— Brad Jansen (@Brad_J_Jansen) September 27, 2015
@TomorrowWorld left thousands of people stranded without shuttles. #tomorrowworld #stranded #raverhike pic.twitter.com/Qu96oFVzde
— Leonardo Trimarchi (@Domt301) September 27, 2015
People of @TomorrowWorld stranded sitting for hours waiting for shuttles/uber some even sleeping in the mud. pic.twitter.com/VDj84Y9jlU
— Media Marin (@MarinCPhoto) September 27, 2015
https://twitter.com/Lbeeofall/status/648156994206081024?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
