Ten Tips for Safety at Nightlife Venues and Festivals

It’s important for you and your rave family to stay safe while attending events, and we’ve put together our top tips to help you out.

In less than a week, the electronic music scene was rattled by three deaths in two tragic events: Beyond Wonderland at the Gorge on the West Coast and Brooklyn Mirage on the East. Whether at a nightclub, an arena, a festival, or anything in between, there are certain precautions we can all take to make our time a little safer.

Related: While safety is always important, self-care is as well. Check out our post highlighting ways you can practice self-care before, during, and after a festival.

The tips below certainly can’t guarantee that a random person with a gun won’t get you in their crosshairs. But, while not unheard of, active shooters in nightclubs and festivals are remarkably rare. These tips will, however, highlight what’s in your control and how to stack the odds in your favor. While we may never know precisely what happened to Karl Clemente after he was turned away from Brooklyn Mirage, we can say that letting a friend walk away alone is a bad idea.

Ten Tips for Safety at Nightlife Venues and Festivals

Photo Credit: Alive Coverage

Have a crew, a meeting place, and consider a buddy system.

Everyone has heard the advice, “There’s strength in numbers,” and that’s because it’s accurate and applies to many situations. You should make plans to arrive and depart events in a group whenever possible. This is especially important for nightlife venues in dark and quiet neighborhoods like Brooklyn Mirage. While there are often enough patrons flowing to and from that you can feel safe, there’s nothing like the safety of your own crew.

Inside the venue, and especially at sprawling festivals, consider a buddy system so no one is moving about alone. This is especially helpful for bathroom breaks and visits to the food and drink vendors. Designate a meeting spot for when you do get separated. You will almost certainly lose someone along the way, and it’s so much easier to go to a meeting spot than rely on messaging that may not be noticed in the moment.

Going solo? This presents some challenges for sure, but it shouldn’t prevent you from staying safe. Share your location with someone not out for the night and agree to check in with them periodically. When commuting on public transit, when you reach your station, you can often identify others about to walk to the venue. Politely ask them, “Hey, are you on your way to Brooklyn Mirage? I’m solo tonight. Can I walk over with you?” You might just find a new squad for the night!

Consider arriving early to get a good feel for the event layout.

Never been to the venue before? Arrive early and take a comprehensive walk around before picking your spot. This can even be helpful in larger, familiar venues that may change configuration based on the event. Aside from knowing where the exits are in an emergency, it’s always helpful to know where the bathrooms, food, and drink locations can be found. At festivals and at larger venues, you should also make a note of EMT locations when available. Lastly, if there are water stations, knowing where these are located can be a lifesaver. I can’t tell you how many times I bought bottle after bottle of water at an NYC nightclub, only to learn later about the water fountains tucked away in a dark corner!

Always be aware of your surroundings and your drinks.

Being aware of your surroundings is connected to the tip above but is more about your immediate surroundings. Simple things like knowing where the rails or other immovable objects are nearby can be important as your position in the crowd changes over time. Remember the buddy system? This can also be helpful to get bathroom and water breaks accomplished while your spot can be maintained.

We wish we didn’t need to talk about protecting your drinks from being drugged, but this is still a thing. Open-top drinks like cocktails are targets for those that might consider slipping someone a drug. If you like mixed drinks as much as a hard seltzer or beer, consider those canned options with smaller openings to mitigate this problem. And if the venue allows you to enter with your own (empty) drink container, consider bringing one with a sippy lid and pouring your cocktails in there.

Photo Credit: Juliana Bernstein for Insomniac Events

Feel the vibe and trust your instincts.

If your gut tells you something isn’t right, it probably isn’t, so pay attention and take action. More often than not, you are picking up on a change in energy that may soon become an active situation. Often just relocating is all you need to get back to baseline. This can be true if you feel like the people around you are becoming unstable or for something as simple as a change in the weather if you are outdoors. It can even be true when the music and lights change the vibe from something light and ethereal to dark and brooding. Whenever your instincts are warning you, listen to them!

If you get trapped in a tight crowd, keep your arms crossed over your chest.

Let’s say you didn’t pick up on a crowd change fast enough and find yourself trapped. Or worse, trying to navigate a stampeding crowd. Take immediate stock of the situation and:

Regulate your breathing

Don’t move directly against the crowd

If possible, slowly move sideways towards an exit (similar to swimming across a riptide)

If all else fails, move with the crowd as carefully as possible while remaining upright

During any period of being trapped by bodies, cross your arms in front of your chest. This keeps them up above the scrum and protects the space you need to breathe. While falling down and getting trampled is the worst-case scenario, this often happens as someone is losing consciousness while upright because they simply didn’t have enough space to expand their lungs and take a breath. Protect that space! This also keeps arms well-positioned to protect your head should you lose your footing.

Technology can be your friend but don’t rely on it as your primary solution.

When considering things like a buddy system, technology can be really helpful in communicating while out of visual range. However, we’ve all had a situation where we couldn’t send or receive a message or were left wondering while the person on the other end suffered this fate. Using shared locations at a sprawling festival or when raving solo can be super helpful.

Also, consider dropping a pin and sharing photos when you are trying to locate each other. How many times have you said “stage right” when you meant “audience right” and never found the person you were looking for? Taking photos of notable items nearby or what the stage looks like where you are located can be a huge help. Being able to reconnect with your crew should always be a priority.

Consider your state of mind, especially when in an altered state of mind.

The moment we talk about “altered state of mind,” everyone thinks we’re talking about drugs. We are, but we’re also talking about the often overlooked drug, alcohol, and also your general state of mind without drugs. If someone is in a poor state of mind at baseline, that will impact their decision-making ability. Alcohol and other drugs will amplify any issues. We sometimes think the negatives are suppressed, but this is rarely the case. Most importantly, if you know someone in your crew in a poor state of mind, drunk, or high, be sure to stay close to them and look out for them; they definitely need you. Leaving that friend alone is the most preventable safety issue we can imagine and one that will haunt you forever if something goes wrong.

Don’t overlook mundane safety tips like earplugs and hydration!

Hydration and hearing protection are probably the two easiest things you can do to stay safe. Losing your hearing means you’ll never enjoy these events again, and this can be prevented with foam earplugs that are super inexpensive, or you can invest in something reusable or custom fit for the best experience. Hydration is another super easy thing you can do to remain safe, especially since so much of our scene takes place in hot, sweaty spaces. Water, or better yet, electrolytes, can become crucial when you mix dancing, heat, alcohol, and other drugs. Carrying a few electrolyte packets you can mix into your water is a simple way to level up your hydration strategy.

In keeping with an overarching theme in our scene, “Look out for each other.”

You’ve probably gotten the message by now, but “Look out for each other” is a key component to both fun and safety. It’s not very PLUR to do something selfish, especially when it risks the safety of you or others around you. The best squads out there are the ones that take care of each other. Nothing feels better than helping someone else get through an experience. Other than perhaps receiving that help when you need it most.

Ultimately, have fun!

Being safe is a heavy and important conversation that can trigger some people and bring down the mood of others. Don’t forget that you came to this event to have fun! Making a habit of considering safety in an easygoing and pragmatic way can enhance the experience instead of distracting from it. This depends on the personalities of all involved, though, so begin the discussion early and well before the event to assure good safety hygiene while not bringing down the mood. Once safety practices become a habit, you can go through the mental and physical checklist quickly and get to the party in the best possible headspace.

In the end, safety doesn’t have to negatively impact your fun, and once these practices come naturally to you, you will no longer even think about them – while you are having fun!