Audio By Carbonatix
Yesterday, city officials announced that they had slapped Electric Daisy Carnival organizers Insomniac Events with seven citations for their event in Fair Park on Saturday night — two for overcrowding, two more for failure to obtain a count of occupants, and three for obstruction of justice.
Today, after having released a statement earlier this week bemoaning the death that had occurred at the festival as a “tragedy,” Insomniac Events CEO and founder Pasquale Rotella has issued a second statement — this one to the local NBC affiliate, refuting the city’s claims that event organizers had done anything to breach their contract.
“Insomniac works closely with local public safety officials in
each City where we operate to make our events safe and we greatly
appreciate their involvement in the planning process. Nothing is
more important to us than the safety of our fans. Given that the
venue was permitted to hold 42,972 people and our event hosted
23,600 we did not violate any laws and plan to appeal these
unwarranted claims.Citations were accepted from the Fire Department in Dallas. The
citations were unwarranted and Insomniac will challenge the
validity of each in court.”
The city has already stated it reasons for believing that Insomniac’s festival had, in fact, allowed its indoor stages to exceed pre-determined capacity volumes.
Much else remains up in the air at this point, as well — including whether the city would
welcome Electric Daisy Carnival’s return in 2012, or whether Insomniac would even elect to, given the circumstances surrounding this year’s event.
“It’s too early to tell,” Dallas city spokesman Frank Librio tells DC9.
In a report that aired on the 10 o’clock news last night, Dallas mayor Dwaine Carraway told the local CBS affiliate that the city needs to do a better job investigating the events it books.
Repeated calls and emails to Insomniac Events have gone unanswered, and we’re currently awaiting word from the mayor’s office on the city’s plans moving forward in its relationship with the Electric Daisy Carnival Promoters.
