Over the past couple years you may have seen festival-goers sporting arms painted in psychedelic tiger stripes, prancing between stages with smiles, jubilance, and the barrage of “where did you get that?!”
However, BL Visuals, the company behind this phenomenon of easily applied psychedelic body paint, has been denied as a vendor to the very festival where it all started: Electric Forest.
The news comes after Electric Forest’s record breaking sell-out and rather confusing alcohol ban, which lends us to believe that the festival is succumbing to a typical case of corporate greed. It’s unfortunate that EF seems to have lost sight of the values which made it so attractive in the first place.
This story is about more than just a vendor being denied a permit to a festival, it’s about the shunning of patrons positively contributing to the event’s magic, and organizers are justifying their actions based on claims which simply aren’t true. It’s especially striking considering that last year, even after paying $3,000+ for their booth, Electric Forest demanded 50% of all BL Visuals’ profits.
“It’s unbelievable to me that we are getting booked by venues/clients across the nation this year to paint for FREE at their event – and that we’ve gotten dozens of international inquiries – yet the festival thrown in our home state of Michigan has declined our services.”
Below is BL Visuals Founder Brad Lawrence’s post regarding the upsetting news. Click here to sign their petition and read the company’s letter to Electric Forest HQ.