© AFP Photo/PASCAL LACHENAUDParticipants at the Teknival music festival in Feniers, central France, were caught off guard by a spring snowstorm on Saturday, May 4
Around 10,000 people attended the unauthorized Teknival 2019 festival in the central Creuse region at the weekend, where temperatures dropped to -3 degrees Celsius (27 degrees Fahrenheit) overnight on Saturday to Sunday.
Around 30 people were treated for hypothermia at the scene and two were taken to hospital, local officials told AFP, with the several centimeters (inches) of snow turning the festival camping experience into an endurance test.
Organizers put a heated tent on the muddy hill-top site, which belongs to the French military, and the Red Cross distributed 500 survival blankets to revelers at the scene.
Teknival is an unauthorized electronic music festival that is held annually at a secret location which is revealed only at the last minute.
French authorities had attempted to prevent this year's edition and police succeeded in stopping several trucks carrying sound systems from arriving.
Last year, to mark its 25th year, the festival was held at a military base in northern France. Organizers were accused by local conservation groups of disturbing a nearby nature zone and unsettling the local bird life.
"Techno" covers a lot of sub-genres, and one wonders exactly what music and artists were present. Also, why exactly is it "unauthorized"? I myself like a specific genre of electronic music - and have never used illegal drugs. Is every electronic music festival a "rave"? Do all electronic music events have drugs available? How about at country music or rock concerts? With hundreds of thousands of music event attendees annually, how many die? This needs to be put in perspective.
The sudden snow is interesting. Maybe Greta Whoever should have been there, raising awareness of climate change.