SHAMBHALA! It’s all anyone who attended the Canadian festival this year is talking about, including some of our own DMNW team. Okay guys, we hear you. And next year we’ll see for ourselves just what all the happy fuss is about. It’s an incredibly special festival with a lot of heart and all the good vibes. It also happens to be a dry festival (no alcohol), and hosts an ANKORS tent, home to all things harm reduction.
Even local law enforcement seemed generally pleased with this year’s festival, an especially unexpected reaction, considering most police are presumably less than thrilled at the chaos a music festival typically brings.
“From a policing and general duty perspective Shambhala was fairly good for us this year… We had no major incidents that we’re aware of, and though traffic was as busy as expected we didn’t have any real problems.” -RCMP Insp. Tom Roy
The 15,000 person festival raged on with music playing from Thursday night to Monday morning. In that time, there were only five ambulance transfers to Trail Hospital. Five. That’s .03%, half of last year’s total, and an impressive number when you extrapolate that over an entire weekend in the sun dancing.
Naturally, we’d like that number to be zero. But summer festivals often boast warm temperatures, with even warmer temperatures in crowds. There’s also always that one person in your group that just plain isn’t taking care of their body by either not eating, sleeping, or hydrating enough. Based on environment alone, some hospitalizations are to be expected.
With the lack of alcohol, the easy access to harm reduction tools, and just a dash of Shambhalove, the combination made this festival safer than it’s ever been before. Props to all who attended and made safe, responsible decisions. Stay tuned for our full writeup on the festival, as well as some special post-Shambhala treats!
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