Two found dead at Queensland music festival
A man and a woman have been found dead at a music festival in Queensland this morning.
Police were called to the Rabbits Eat Lettuce music festival today after the pair were found dead in a tent. The festival describes itself as being a place of “freedom, love and dance music.”
The pair, a 24-year-old Maleny male, and a 22-year-old Nambour woman were found around 9:30am at the Warwick festival. Paramedics were called promptly after the discovery.
“While investigations are continuing to determine the cause of death, there are no suspicious circumstances at this stage,” a police statement said. Warwick Police said the festival-goers were found at the Cherrabah Resort on the event’s final day.
Warwick Police Senior sergeant Jamie Deacon explained to Warwick Daily News that police officials were on the scene and investigating the two deaths.
Meanwhile, festival organisers shared a statement to their Facebook page. They explained it was “heartbreaking to lose some beautiful souls that we consider part of our extended family”
The statement continues: “Rabbit Eat Lettuce place the wellbeing and safety of our patrons as the number one priority.”
Read the full statement here:
The festival’s website invites city dwellers to get out of their normal environment and experience the natural landscape. “Come and camp in a beautiful natural environment and form a community of like-minded souls who want to escape the hustle and bustle of the city life,” the website reads.
“Rabbits Eat Lettuce lets us be human again. We can dissolve the social barriers and dance together,” it continues.
“Everyone knows everyone, it will hit the community pretty hard,” one reveller said. Punters loved the tight knit community which the festival inhibits. “Everyone who attends is ‘family’. It was such a chill event.”
Earlier this year, the event was involved in a legal controversy involving a sister event Bohemian Beatfreaks. Rabbits Eat Lettuce had to move from northern NSW to Southern Downs in Queensland.
Rabbits Eat Lettuce took the New South Wales Police Force to the Land and Environment Court at that time. Festival organisers challenged a decision the event would be too unsafe to go ahead on a property south of Casino. While the court ruled in their favour and said the event had the all-clear, organisers were set to face a $105,000 bill for event policing, which had a 3000-person capacity.
“Overall Queensland seems to be pretty supportive of the festival industry,” organiser Erik Lamir said. “We’re not on the [State Government’s] high risk list. We’ve never had a death,” he told media prior to this event.
These two deaths add to the growing number of festival deaths across the country this year, and continued discussions about the viability of festivals continuing in NSW.
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This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.