Dennis RomeroSee our EDC slideshow of photos here. Reporting from Las Vegas.
As expected, things mellowed out on the third day of Electric Daisy Carnival's massive three-day rave fest in Las Vegas over the weekend. While organizers claimed 80,000 people attended on Sunday — more than Friday's turnout on a school night — we were told by someone who had an exact running count that the number was more like 63,000.
So much for beating Coachella's 75,000 a day capped attendance (EDC had an apparently self-imposed limit of 100,000 per session). But heck, those are certainly Coachella-adjacent numbers, and that's a heck of a lot of people for an electronic dance music party (including a claimed 75,000 Friday and 85,000 Saturday).
Was it a success?
You be the judge. But it was fairly well organized, the sound systems were amazing, and nobody died (so far).
As you'll recall, temporarily chaotic conditions paired with more than 200 medical emergencies and 60 mostly drug-related arrests, not to mention the death of a 15-year-old raver, helped hasten EDC's move from the L.A. Coliseum to Vegas this year.
Ravers, or festival-goers?; Credit: Colin Young-Wolff
On Sunday there were six felony and 14 misdemeanor arrests, Las Vegas Metro Police told us.
For the three-day event that would mean there were 29 felony arrests and 31 misdemeanor collars — fairly low numbers compared to L.A.'s edition.
While there were 330 medical emergencies through the end of Saturday's session (the promoter prefers to call them medical calls, but we used emergencies to stay consistent with terminology used in L.A.), we were so far unable to get Sunday's numbers.
Vegas authorities said they were ready for this. Looks like they were.
See exclusive music reviews of EDC here, here and here.
[@dennisjromero/djromero@laweekly.com]
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