26 Teenagers Hospitalised For Poisoning At Wiz Khalifa Concert

It’s not been a good year for the health of concert-goers. Since January we’ve seen festival goers being struck by lightning at a German music event, one dead and two injured from ‘legal highs’ at a Scottish festival, a number of stage collapses from the 20 injured in a stage falling apart at a Swedish festival to the tragic Radiohead stage collapse in Canada.

Then there’s been the awful wave of stabbings at gigs lately, from the nine Irish punters who were knifed at a Swedish House Mafia performance, while in New York, an ex-member of hardcore punk act Cro-Mags stabbed and bit his former bandmates backstage; and more recently a Tenacious D concert in Las Vegas was shut down due to a violent knifing.

Today we can add poisoning to that ever-growing list of concert mishaps, with 26 teenagers at a recent New York show for “Black And Yellow” rapper Wiz Khalifa being admitted to hospital for alcohol poisoning.

An NBC news report indicates that teens aged between 14 and 18 years old, were taken to the Nassau University Medical Centre in New York to be treated for various alcohol-related illnesses ahead of the tattooed Maroon 5 collaborator’s appropriately titled Under The Influence Of Music concert at Jones Beach last Thursday.

No alcohol was sold on site or during the event (despite its name), but some of the crowd were found by local police to be taking ‘Under The Influence’ to heart; drinking alcohol and hard liquor in the parking lot prior to the hip-hop event, featuring Wiz Khalifa alongside the likes of hip-hop acts, Chiddy Bang, Kendrick Lamar and Mac Miller.

Speaking to Newsday, Police Sgt. Manny Miller of the local State Parks police force, said: “There’s so much drinking going on…it’s out of control,”

A hospital spokeswoman said that none of the youths were admitted to the hospital for further care, eventually being released to their parents after a doctor treated to their alcohol poisoning.