A new study aims to expose which drugs are most prevalent at each major music festival, and found some very interesting results.
Conducted by Detox.net, a website for those seeking help with substance abuse and addiction, the researchers examined more than six million Instagram posts from music events over the last two years, eventually categorizing them by unique festival and mentions of drugs and alcohol.
The finished product revealed which substances are most popular at each festival, broken down into a series of charts.
The first chart simply stated which festivals all the posts examined came from, by percentage. While Tomorrowland, Ultra Music Festival, South By Southwest and Lollapalooza had the largest percentage of total posts, this could largely be due to the availability of cell-phone service relative to more remote festivals.
The next chart shows how many posts from each festival mentioned drugs or alcohol. For these, Coachella led with 7.6% of total posts, followed by the more predictable Marley Fest and Burning Man.
Next, Detox broke down how often specific substances were mentioned at each unique festival.
For example, 61.1% of drug-related Lollapalooza posts were about alcohol, 18.6& about marijuana, and 9.3% were simply generic drug terms.
Other interesting statistics: A hilarious 95.4% of Marley Fest’s drug-related posts were regarding marijuana, and Electric Forest, Camp Bisco and Burning Man were the sole festivals to have more than 15% mention LSD.
The next chart acknowledged which festivals certain drugs were most commonly mentioned, revealing that mushrooms and LSD were most commonly referenced in posts from Electric Forest, Burning Man and Camp Bisco, while MDMA was most popular at Mad Decent Block Party, Electric Zoo and Electric Daisy Carnival. Marijuana was preferred at Marley Fest, Camp Bisco and Electric Forest.
On a stranger, local note, Lollapalooza has the most Instagram posts regarding crack usage.
A final chart reveals which festivals had the most drug and alcohol related posts, in general.
Though it’s no revelation that drugs and alcohol are playing a major role in the ongoing popularity of music festivals, the study does give an interesting glimpse into the different preferences of unique festivals’ attendees.
See the original published study here.
