At 9am on Monday 5th May 2014, 24 UK festivals will conduct a digital blackout across their websites and social media, throwing their homepages into darkness for a day to raise awareness of the dangers of legal highs. 

The homepage of the participating festivals will have a completely black window except for a grey light bulb and the message ‘Don’t be in the Dark about Legal Highs’. Upon clicking on the light bulb, information on legal highs will appear and the user will have the option to find out more, or navigate to the regular festival homepage. Many of the festivals’ social media profiles will also feature the light bulb as their main profile picture.

The initiative has been put together by UK festivals trade body, the Association of Independent Festivals (AIF), who are working with Angelus Foundation, a charity set up exclusively to educate individuals about the risks of legal highs. The initiative is expected to become an annual event.

Festivals involved in this initiative are: 2000trees, ArcTanGent, Belladrum Tartan Heart, Bestival, Blissfields, Brownstock, Eden Sessions, Festibelly, Glasgow Summer Sessions, Global Gathering, Kendal Calling, Leefest, Lovebox, Nozstock, Parklife, Secret Garden Party, Shambala, Sonisphere, T in the Park, Tramlines, Truck, Wakestock, We Are FSTVL and Y Not Festival.

A key focus of the campaign is to dispel the misconception that ‘legal’ equates to ‘safe’, and the trends are worrying – last year there was an  80% increase of deaths from legal highs from 29 to 52. 

AIF Co-Founder and Vice Chair, Ben Turner said, “Legal highs are a serious concern for any festival organiser and the issue is only going to get bigger. The substances have managed to fly under-the-radar purely by evolving faster than the monitoring bodies can regulate. 

“Banning it at our festivals is only part of the battle however, we need to make fans aware of the dangers of legal highs and help them make safer choices when having fun on site.”

Maryon Stewart, Founder of Angelus Foundation added, “Legal highs are a huge but hidden problem because young people are acting in ignorance and no-one is measuring the harms. As the lead organisation raising awareness of these substances, Angelus is delighted the festivals are taking the issue seriously and helping to keep their audiences safe. We are determined to keep expanding our prevention programme into new areas and bigger events until everyone get the message that the effects of these substances are unpredictable and high risk.”