Following the deaths of two people at Mutiny Festival in Portsmouth, concerns have been raised over the festival’s lack of access to drinking water.
The festival cancelled its final day yesterday (May 27). An 18-year-old woman and and a 20-year-old man died in separate incidents at the festival’s site in King George V Playing Fields, Cosham, however, as Guardian report, the deaths are believed to be the result of high-strength ecstasy.
Reports were spotted on social media alleging that after 4pm, there was a lack of drinking water on-site with some of the taps not working at all. The Mutiny Festival organisers have responded to this allegation saying that there were 21 functional taps working at all times throughout Saturday.
The fact mutiny festival ran out of water yesterday on the hottest day and you're not even allowed to take water in is disgusting
— ♡Holly♡ (@lolhollyy) May 27, 2018
On Saturday (May 26), the festival issued a “harm prevention alert” via Twitter to warn festival-goers about the use of drugs.
The message described a “dangerous high-strength or bad-batch substance on site,” and asked Twitter users to retweet the information.
https://twitter.com/MutinyFestivals/status/1000474659404550144
Police were alerted when an 18-year-old woman fell ill at 7.10pm on Saturday night (26 May) and a 20-year-old man collapsed 20 minutes later. At least 12 other individuals were taken to hospital on Saturday night though not all are confirmed to be drug-related.
They were both taken to Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth, but later died. The two victims have been identified as Georgia Jones and Tommy Cowan, who also went by Tommy Bakeer.
Cowan’s father has spoken to the BBC, saying: “It’s no good saying ‘don’t do drugs’, all I can say is ‘take this on board, look what’s happened, if you want to end up that way, carry on’. If you don’t, don’t even think about it.”
Dizzee Rascal, Craig David and Sean Paul were among the bigger names expected to play at the event.