Police plead with revellers ahead of Sydney’s Domain Field Day music festival 2018

Police are pleading revellers at a popular New Year’s Day festival in Sydney to celebrate safely following a recent spate of music festival deaths around the state.

• Lost Paradise festival-goers boast about taking drugs
• One dead, two hospitalised after ingesting ‘unknown substance’

Police are pleading revellers at a popular New Year’s Day festival in Sydney to celebrate safely following a recent spate of music festival deaths around the state.

Well over 20,000 people are expected to converge on Sydney’s Domain for the annual Field Day music festival.

In 2018, more than 160 people were arrested and charged with drug possession at the long-running over-18s event, which is entering its seventeenth year.

A 22-year-old man was also allegedly caught with 138 MDMA pills at Field Day 2018. Five people were hospitalised for drug-related health issues.

In 2017, a staggering 204 people were arrested at the event for around 215 drug-related offences.

Crowd at the Field Day Music Festival in The Domain, Sydney.

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Police Operation Commander, Detective Chief Inspector Stuart Bell said that the message needs to get through to people attending Field Day 2019.

“Not only are they illegal, prohibited drugs can be extremely harmful to your health, and are potentially life-threatening,” he said.

“We repeat these warnings every year and will continue to prioritise the safety and wellbeing of all festival-goers.

“We want Field Day 2019 to be an incident-free event.”

Det Chief Inspector Bell said that the weather will make the situation more dangerous.

“With warm weather anticipated, we strongly encourage revellers to look out for one another, stay hydrated by drinking plenty of water — not alcohol — keep cool, and be sun smart,” he said.

The mercury is predicted to hit 29 degrees in Sydney tomorrow.

The dire warning comes just two days after 22-year-old Josh Tam died after allegedly mixing MDMA tablets and alcohol at the Lost Paradise music festival on the NSW Central Coast.

Four other revellers at the Lost Paradise festival were rushed to Gosford Hospital after suspected overdoses. They were released late on Sunday afternoon.

Mr Tam was the fourth young adult since September to die from a drug overdose at a NSW music festival.

Earlier this month, 19-year-old Callum Brosnan died in similar circumstances to Mr Tam at a hardstyle dance festival at Sydney Olympic Park.

In September, two people died from suspected overdoses at the popular Defqon. 1 dance festival in Penrith.

Meanwhile, the organisers of Falls Festival, Secret Sounds, have warned attendees about the dangers of drugs in the wake of Mr Tam’s death.

“You do not know what is in them, how your body will react, there is no safe level of consumption,” they said.

“One pill can kill.”

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