The role of harm minimisation to prevent alcohol and drug misuse at outdoor music events

The outdoor music festival (OMF) is a unique social event where music is the central theme. As OMFs have grown in popularity, so too has the amount of recorded patient presentation rates, highlighting the impact that OMFs have on the health and safety outcomes for the audience. OMFs are unique events that are for the most part bounded, ticketed and where alcohol is served. The genres at OMFs include hard rock, electronic, house music, world music and anything and everything in between. Patterns of alcohol and drug use have long been associated with certain types of mass gatherings and as significant contributors to increased patterns of morbidity and mortality. Excessive drinking and the ingestion of drugs by young people at OMFs is a serious public health issue. Creating supportive environments deals with the inextricable links between people and their environments.