‘A Completely Disorganized Mess’: 2021 Elements Festival Was Nothing Close to What Organizers Advertised, Class Action Says

New to ClassAction.org? Read our Newswire Disclaimer

The organizers of the 2021 Elements Festival face a proposed class action that alleges the purportedly high-end three-day arts, music and camping event in Lakewood, Pennsylvania turned out to be nothing close to what attendees were promised. 

The 39-page negligence and breach-of-contract lawsuit says that although the defendants extensively promoted and marketed this year’s Elements Festival as a safe, multi-day event with specified musical acts, significant COVID-19 safety protocols, Americans With Disabilities Act accessibility measures, premium lodging and sufficient parking, the event was anything but, to the extent that some would refer to it afterward as reminiscent of the disastrous 2017 Fyre Festival. 

According to the lawsuit, Elements Festival attendees, who reportedly paid anywhere from $350 to $1,300 depending on the ticket package, were greeted on Friday, September 3, 2021 with rain-soaked grounds stemming from the recently-passed Hurricane Ida, a storm that the plaintiffs argue the defendants knew of or should have planned for. Moreover, the complaint says attendees encountered upon arrival completely disorganized and “disheveled” parking areas in addition to insufficient staffing, a more than ten-hour-plus wait just to enter the festival, insufficient COVID-19 screening protocols and a scarcity of access to food, water and sanitary toilets, among myriad other problems. 

In addition to the foregoing, an advertised “general store,” where attendees could purchase basic convenience items, was “not readily apparent,” and individuals who paid for premium group camping areas found them to be neither roped off nor reserved and lacking a dedicated on-site manager, the lawsuit claims. Worse, a number of the musical acts the defendants said would perform at the event, including Esseks, Desert Dwellers, J. Worra and Oona Ogal, among others, pulled out of the festival and did not perform at all, the complaint says. 

Overall, the defendants created at the Elements Festival “an uncomfortable and dangerous situation,” the suit alleges. Per the filing, most of the attendees missed the first day of musical acts as a result of the “excruciating wait and physical effort” needed merely to get into the festival. 

“Festival-goers were subject to extremely long, time-consuming walks in mud-soaked grounds with heavy camping gear and equipment, as part of the nearly ten hour wait just to enter into the festival, during which no food, water, restrooms or proper guidance from anyone affiliated with the Defendants was made available,” the case says. 

With regard to the advertised COVID-19 safety protocols, the lawsuit relays that attendees were told screening for the virus and a person’s vaccination status would be performed via the CrowdPass app, yet this was not properly utilized by the defendants, according to the case. As a result, the vaccination and/or testing status, as well as valid identification, for many festival-goers was not checked at all upon entry, the lawsuit states. 

Once inside, attendees encountered “extremely unsanitary conditions,” including unusable hand washing stations and bathing stations with showers that did not work. 

“Furthering the misery,” the lawsuit goes on, “Elements Festival security allowed attendees to bring in only one liter of water, but then the festival ran out of its own water provisions by the second day, and access to water thereafter was spotty, putting attendees at risk for dehydration, additional health risks, and more.” 

Further still, the suit says that due to the headaches they experienced in simply showing up and getting into the actual festival, many attendees, such as the plaintiffs, realized that the staffing issues and disorganized parking situation meant that it would be necessary to leave early in the morning on the third day. As a result, the festival-goers would miss the third-day musical acts they had paid to see “in order to escape the unsafe and unsanitary conditions at the Elements Festival,” the complaint contends. 

“Even then,” the suit stresses, “attendees’ efforts to escape the understaffed, disorganized, and unsanitary festival were hamstrung by the disorganized and mud-soaked grounds, where no efforts had been made by Elements Festival’s staff or security to make certain parking areas more accessible, and easier to use, such as putting down wood chips to facilitate vehicle access and then drive those vehicles out of the area.”

Moreover, festival staff was unavailable to help departing attendees whose vehicles had gotten stuck in the mud, the case says. Per the lawsuit, these individuals were forced to seek the help of a local family in order to leave the event.

Those who paid for tickets and travel arrangements to the 2021 Elements Festival suffered financial damages, the lawsuit alleges. The defendants, listed below, failed to warn festival-goers about the laundry list of issues awaiting them, the suit says. 

The defendants named in the complaint are Elements Production, LLC; BangOn!NYC; organizers Brett Herman and Timothy Monkiewicz; and Tested Contained Retreats, LLC. 

The suit looks to cover all individuals who purchased tickets to and/or attended the 2021 Elements Festival. The lawsuit seeks alleged damages in excess of $5 million.

Get class action lawsuit news sent to your inbox – sign up for ClassAction.org’s free weekly newsletter here.