Organizers for Boston Calling are responding to criticism that the final day of the three-day festival was unsafe.
People have taken to social media saying it felt hard to get air, and that it wasn't possible to move due to how thick the crowd was on Sunday at the music festival, which was held from May 24-26 at the Harvard Athletic Complex.
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"It felt unsafe and it was so like just congested everywhere, it was really hard to get like air, and just get like a break from the crowds," Sarah Mundy, who attended the festival on Sunday, told NBC10 Boston. "When people make that kind of investment, to spend their money that way, they deserve to have like a safe experience where they're not having a panic attack."
Mundy had posted a video to TikTok saying her mind was still blown at how unsafe the event was. She also said it took over three hours to fill your water bottle at the refill stations and over an hour to get food.
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"This event was so unorganized and so oversold that they are lucky that nobody died," she said in the video. "In every direction, there were walls and walls of people...you could not escape the crowd."
"The entire time I just kept thinking this is so unsafe. Like if there's an emergency in the thick of this crowd, there's no chance that somebody's going to be able to get to them," she added.
Boston EMS says it spent months planning and coordinating with festival organizers and assigned more than 40 department members to each day of the music festival. EMTs and paramedics were deployed to four different medical stations, ambulances, and mobile units.
According to the spokesperson, Boston EMS had nearly 800 medical encounters over the course of the three days, with 23 patients taken to local hospitals for treatment.
More than half of the medical calls came on Sunday alone, however. There were 412 medical encounters on the last day of the festival, when temperatures soared into the 90s, the Boston EMS spokesperson said, noting that people's symptoms were typical of music festival encounters and that heat played a major role. Thirteen of those patients were taken to area hospitals on Sunday.
Another woman on TikTok said there was a "giant crowd crush" that was "pretty scary," adding that she didn't see a single security person.
"You started to get really packed in and nobody could move," Julie Turtle said. "After a few minutes of that we began to realize this really is not normal for a crowd at a concert. There were people around us in the crowd who were actively having panic attacks, people were yelling for medics..."
She also claimed Boston Calling was deleting people's negative comments on their Instagram page.
In a statement Tuesday, Boston Calling said they deeply appreciate the audience, staff and performers who make the three-day festival possible and they want to acknowledge the feedback from Sunday.
"While attendee count was several thousand below the official capacity rating of the site, we never want anyone to feel uncomfortable or unsafe at the show," the statement read. "The safety and well-being of our fans, artists, guests and staff is paramount."
While they claim Sunday's attendance was below the occupancy limit at the Harvard Athletic Complex, one of their social media posts from May 23 said general admission tickets were sold out and there were only a limited number of three-day passes left. Fans also sounded off in the statement's comments saying referencing the occupancy limit showed a lack of accountability and that legal capacity doesn't supersede what the experience was for concertgoers.
Festival organizers have not said how many people attended Boston Calling, but Boston.com, citing several sources, said there were at least 40,000 people who attended Sunday's sold-out set, which featured The Killers, Hozier, Megan Thee Stallion, and Chappel Roan. Sunday's attendance was reportedly more than double the number of people who attended the festival the day prior.
Boston Calling said they will continue to work with public officials and their operations team "to improve the experience, layout, and ultimately create a better environment for everyone."
