The American based spin-off of one of the world's largest EDM festivals left thousands of party-goers stranded in the worst of conditions.
After dancing and party for three days at TomorrowWorld, guests found themselves stranded in Chattahoochee Hills, Georgia without access to water, taxis, or Uber. Organizers closed the grounds to outside transportation after rainy conditions and a poor contingency plan turned the surrounding area to mud.
After the first two days of the festival found taxis and cars stuck in mud organizers closed the third day of the festival to on-site campers, meaning the 190,000 people estimated to attend would be severely cut down to 40,000. TomorrowWorld advised those who were not allowed back for the final day would be refunded.
"Today, Sunday September 27, TomorrowWorld will be accessible only to visitors currently camping onsite at DreamVille. We take the safety of all of our visitors very seriously. The rainfall since Thursday resulted in limited capacity of festival parking fields, drop-off locations, and the shuttle system. Festival-goers with day tickets, guest list tickets, and anyone not already camping at DreamVille will unfortunately not be able to access today's events. Food and entertainment will be provided for the visitors already situated in DreamVille. The refund policy for affected visitors will be announced as soon as possible."
Attendees have since taken to media outlets to share the devastating photos as well as their grief, anger, and sheer lack of help from festival planners.
Rob Meyers, 33, told Billboard he was lucky enough to catch the last shuttle around midnight. However he got home 4 hours later. Meyers described the scene as a "sh**tshow" adding ""I've been to a lot of festivals in my life and I've never seen that kind of anger and anxiety people were having towards other people. We passed thousands of people walking. I saw three or four people almost get hit by cars. There was no police presence. The public safety issue at hand there was serious. There was a complete breakdown in communication, no guidance and you could tell whoever was managing it had no contingency plan in place to get people out of there."
A user on Reddit described scenes of people walking through the woods just to find a way out. "Ppl were walking through the woods just to exit. I'm sure what they did was highly illegal. A riot was about to break out. I was only able to get out by the woods then paid a shuttle money to let us on. Once in the parking lot, we waited two hours to get out. F**k this festival. I wouldn't be surprised if they got sued by a bunch of ppl."
The Twitter sphere blew up with photos of the ghastly sight as well as those expressing their outrage.
@Jessicamarais_ "‪@TomorrowWorld you have drugged/drunk people walking 5+ hours to their car with no cell reception sleeping on the road with no food/water"
@OldGrumpyNerd "@TomorrowWorld Nice going charging VIP price and offering the homeless experience. Thousands of people sleeping on the road. #NotMagical"
@Rodneylief "still can't believe @TomorrowWorld left 1000s of us w/ shuttle passes stranded in the middle of Chattahoochee Hills will no ability to @Uber"
Yikes. At this time there have been no reports of any serious injuries.