Moving over a hundred thousand people to and from festival grounds is a difficult proposition at the best of times, but revelers reported more transportation breakdowns than usual at this year’s edition of Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) Las Vegas. Issues surrounding the three-day event’s shuttle services and premier parking options have elicited social media uproar that organizers couldn’t help but address.
Veteran EDC attendees are no strangers to long lines and traffic jams getting from the Strip to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway and back again. This year, oversights on the part of the promoter aggravated these issues. Complaints during day 2 ranging from the lack of air conditioning in official EDC shuttles to congestion of reserved parking lots led Insomniac Events founder Pasquale Rotella to issue a public apology.
Setbacks are expected when about 136,000 people travel on the same two-lane highway on a single night, but last night’s events hinted at deeper problems. In November of last year, EDC’s organizers sparked controversy by denying third-party shuttle services provided by companies like Jus College, Till Dawn Group and Unity Travel access to the festival grounds “to improve traffic flow to and from the festival.”
The transportation crisis isn’t the only dilemma overshadowing EDC Las Vegas 2017. For the first time since 2011 neither GA nor VIP tickets to the festival sold out, and both medical calls and attendee ejections on the first night of the event numbered more than double those of last year.
The third and final day of EDC Las Vegas begins today, June 18th at 7:00 PM PST and wraps up at 5:30 AM the following day.
