Moonrise Festival Issues Statement Regarding Security Guards’ Alleged Extortion

According to initial reports from Magnetic Mag, several security members at last weekend’s Moonrise Festival in Baltimore attempted to extort attendees for money or drugs at the threat of cutting off their wristbands. Many patrons of the festival took to the Moonrise Festival 2016 Facebook group to post their stories and complaints, leading to a widespread discussion within the community regarding the event’s attention to safety and fair play.

Now, two days after the festival’s end, Moonrise has finally given a statement on the issue. They said that they have set up a dedicated email address for anyone wanting to come forward about their experiences with members of the security staff. An investigation is already under way with the management who ran each of the security teams, they said.

“We are heartbroken to hear that our patrons were treated in a way that was less than acceptable by our standards.”

Read the full statement below.

We are aware of the reports coming in about members of specific security teams on site acting in an unprofessional manner that would be considered unfair to our patrons and unfair to the event. We are taking these reports very seriously. We ask that anyone who had any issue with security personnel on site please contact us immediately at [email protected] with full details, including a description of the individual, what they were wearing, where the issue took place, and what happened. We have already begun an investigation with the management running each of the security teams on site. We will be addressing these issues as a whole internally and on a personal case-by-case basis with our fans.

This is not something we will be taking lightly; we spend countless hours on our security planning for this event in an effort to create a safe and comfortable environment for our fan base. We added additional management from our team to oversee the security and prevent these issues. Throughout the weekend we had management staff working to remove individuals from our security team who acted in a manner that was unprofessional. We are heartbroken to hear that our patrons were treated in a way that was less than acceptable by our standards.

Please contact us immediately so we can resolve these issues for future events – [email protected]

Sincerely,The Moonrise Team