Above: Wendy Teasdill is the mother of Ellie Rowe. Ellie died at the festival in 2013 after mixing a small amount of alcohol with a small amount of high purity K. The family gave a heart rendering talk at Speakers Corner at Boomtown this year.

Across the pond, drug-related dates are spiking. So this year’s Boomtown was something of a revelation in the kind of harm reduction strategies, that can be brought to bear on the crisis.

The short documentary above looks at how We Are The Loop worked to test drugs on site at this year’s festival and takes you through the issues involved. We’ll be having more coverage of this in our next issue.

How long do we have to wait for such common sense to prevail at Irish festivals?