Saturday night’s all-ages Haunted Coliseum in New York was publicised as the ‘Biggest Dance Music Party in Long Island History’. Unfortunately it got a little too scary, a little too soon. The former Swedish House Mafia member Sebastian Ingrosso and his pupil Alesso headlining, the show was set to be something other wordly. However, it made the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Before midnight, 20 minutes into Alesso's set, the police shut down Haunted Coliseum because of various reports of teenagers needing hospitalisation. Ingrosso never even made it to the stage. .
The event's website publicised the party saying: “We would like you to be 16 but you don’t need ID (to drink you must have 21 and over valid ID).” Right, like the phrase in brackets is going to keep teenage ravers from poisoning themselves mindless on an occasion like this. Police press agent said: “According to detectives, during a rave concert at the Nassau Coliseum several 911 calls were received for intoxicated youths. While detectives and officers were at scene investigating, [they encountered] as many as 100 intoxicated youths between the ages of 14 and 18.” There were 'children' carried out on stretchers for crying out loud. There were other awful scenes, like a helicopter pilote charged with reckless endangerment after landing a helicopter on-site. The promoter of the event Louis Branchinelli was crying out that they couldn't do anything about kids showing up drunk and that they didn't get drinks inside. This is a lame excuse. The fact is, that they should've never done a party without an age limit.
Branchinelli should've read the FAQ of the Haunted Coliseum venue:
"Q. If I Come To the Venue Not Sober / Drunk or Anything Else
A. We will Not let you in The Venue"
Besides the unfortunate cases of teenagers harming themselves and disappointing their parents, there's bad publicity for the performers. Alesso got jumped on his Facebook page for walking out on his fans. It's rather good that Ingrosso never got on stage. Hopefully people understand that the responsiblity lies in the promoters of the event and not on other people involved in it. Certainly there's a lesson in this for everybody - the promoters, the venue, the DJs and most of all the kids.