The TomorrowWorld 2015 EDM Festival that took place over the weekend in Georgia turned into a disaster due to rainy conditions and lack of organization, according to attendees. A dedicated Facebook page called "TomorrowWorld 2015 Sucks" quickly went up as an outlet for participants to vent and share their stories of misfortune.
The TomorrowWorld music festival in Chattahoochee Hills, Georgia is one of the largest of its kind in North America. This year's roster featured a slew of top EDM artists and DJs, including Swedish House Mafia's Steve Angello, Kaskade, DJ Snake, David Guetta, Afrojack, and Hardwell. Last year's festival brought in over 160,000 ravers, and a similar number was set to enjoy the music this year when nature intervened.
Rainstorms created wet and muddy conditions, which led to the decision to bar all attendees who were not already camping on site from entering the Festival area on Sunday — even though they had paid for their tickets and the rain had stopped. The organizers posted the decision on their Facebook page:
"TomorrowWorld will only be accessible to visitors currently camping at DreamVille. 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....
"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 last day of the festival will go on for the 40,000 visitors already situated in DreamVille.... More information and refund policy will be available soon."
Angry ravers who were barred from entry – many of whom had travelled a great distance to attend – came close to rioting to demand entry, but to no avail. More disturbingly, the decision to stop shuttle service from the festival back to attendees' cars on Saturday night forced thousands of concertgoers to either walk miles through the mud in the pitch dark, sleep on the wet grass, or pay up to hundreds of dollars for an Uber ride just to reach shelter.
The mayor of Chattahoochee Hills has issued a plea for tractors to help pull cars from the mud, vowing to investigate.
"While the rain (compounded by serious promoter communication issues and transportation vendor failures) has obviously caused a mess, with serious parking and access issues, our Public Safety teams and their partners have been working tirelessly to maintain safety," said Mayor Tom Reed. "A dissection of what went wrong, and a process to ensure it does not happen again, will follow."
Hundreds of angry ticket-holders have joined the "TomorrowWorld 2015 Sucks" Facebook page to share their stories, post photos and vent their outrage.
