It’s no secret that many music festivals are only able to operate thanks to small armies of passionate music lovers that sign on as volunteers. Just imagine the Golden Plains of the Supernatural Meredith Amphitheatre running efficiently without the aid Aunty Meredith’s essential ‘Helpers’.
The whole idea is founded on a basic win-win situation, the volunteer gets free festival entry and valued experience in exchange for their work, which the music event obviously benefits from. But this exact arrangement has been scrutinised as part of a class action lawsuit that’s targeting two of the world’s biggest music promoters.
Live Nation and their partner Insomniac Events, an EDM group that produces the likes of Electric Daisy and Electric Zoo, have been slugged with a lawsuit that claims they broke federal and Californian labor laws for recruiting unpaid volunteers for their music festivals, without offering the usual compensation of “time to enjoy some live music,” as HypeBot reports.
The suit has been brought forward by one Elizabeth Valladares, who was a volunteer at Insomniac’s Nocturnal Wonderland festival, who according to ClassAction.org arrived at 12:30 pm and worked a shift at the event’s general store until 2:30 am “where she helped concertgoers purchase glow sticks, candy, cigarettes and other items.”
Apart from a single meal break however, she was allowed no time off to enjoy the festival or getting experience about “the inner workings of festival production,” and is instead seeking reimbursement and wages owed to volunteers. The lawsuit accuses the company for staffing events largely with unpaid fans, “leveraging their eagerness to attend these events against their willingness to work for free.”
The plaintiff alleges that not only were fellow volunteers lured into unpaid work with the promise of getting to enjoy live music, but that Insomniac failed to track the hours volunteers spent working and event intentionally misclassified them to avoid paying minimum wages (US$ 7.25) for overtime, and violating laws allowing for the recruitment of unpaid workers for a for-profit company.
Lastly, the lawsuit accuses Insomniac for profiting from non-refundable “deposit fees” volunteers were required to pay in the event they do not perform their duties or fail to fulfil them to Insomniac’s satisfaction, meaning in some cases, workers were forced to pay Insomniac for the privilege of working. According to Valladares, the Nocturnal Wonderland role required a credit deposit of US$ 89.90, held for one to five days after the event, along with her driver’s license.
Valladares claims that Insomniac, one of the biggest EDM promoters in America, is exploiting volunteers’ love for music to ensure the profitability of its operations, accusing the company for staffing events – with their Ground Control and Night Owls programs – largely with unpaid fans, “leveraging their eagerness to attend these events against their willingness to work for free.”
The attorneys who filed the lawsuit did so on the belief that there are others (many others) that treated the same way as Valladares and calls for other volunteers to take part in the claim, which seeks to cover anyone who has worked at any Live Nation or Insomniac event, concert, or “promotional gathering” over the past four years.
Neither Live Nation or Insomniac have official responded to the claim as yet.
(Image: Insomniac Night Owls. Source: Facebook)
