This Labor day weekend marked the 20th anniversary of Insomniac‘s Nocturnal Wonderland, which took place at the San Manuel Amphitheater in San Bernardino, California. Over 85,000 eager electronic music fans made it out to this year’s celebration, but despite the fortunate lack of reported deaths during the three day festival, Nocturnal 2015 wasn’t without its controversies and conflicts. Within the first two days of the event, over 200 attendees were arrested, as San Bernardino County sheriff’s Capt. Stephen Dorsey reported that 76 people were arrested Friday and 123 were arrested Saturday. Each day of Nocturnal welcomed roughly 30,000 festivalgoers through its gates, making the ratio of arrests within the first two days about 1 out of every 300 attendees. The majority of the arrests were due to trespassing, but some cases were due to possession of drugs or attempts at selling drugs. Capt. Dorsey informed that the majority of the arrests, were due to “people who are trying to sneak in. You’re not welcome here unless you’re paying, and those people who are sneaking in are not being searched.” That being said, San Bernardino County Fire Department’s spokeswoman, Tracey Martinez said they hadn’t responded to any major incidents.
The Sheriff’s Department had a noticeably presence at this year’s festival, having uniformed and plainclothes officers patrolling the grounds throughout the weekend. In addition to their main duty of keeping the peace during the weekend’s event, the Sheriff’s Department and its officers were also handing out informational flyers on MDMA, that were said to resemble promo flyers, which coincided with Nocturnal’s mission to educate attendees on various ways to party safely. Dorsey mentioned how receptive attendees were to the information. He also remarked, “We have found this type of crowd to be very respectful.” “They are constantly thanking us for their safety.”
