After a 23-year-old Sydney woman was found dead at an alternative music festival on Sunday, NSW police have said they did not want the event to go ahead.
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It is believed she complained to friends about feeling sick at the Dragon Dreaming Festival at Wee Jasper on Saturday evening, and was found not breathing and unresponsive about 5.30am on Sunday.
Medics performed CPR at the festival ground but couldn't revive her. The cause of her death is unknown but police confirmed she had no medical conditions.
Someone from the "Dragon Dreaming Festival 2015" Facebook page commented on a post on the group's wall offering their "sincerest condolences" to the woman's family and friends.
"The thoughts of all our staff, volunteers and patrons are with you," it reads.
Superintendent Zoran Dzevlan said he wasn't pleased about the festival moving locations to Wee Jasper in 2013.
"It was previously run in the ACT under a different name," he said.
"I had numerous concerns. The location, issues with emergency management, proximity to emergency services, and intelligence suggested that there could be drugs at the event."
"They were concerns of myself and my senior management."
More than 70 police officers patrolled the four-day festival and made 78 drug detections – up from last year's 72. They included cannabis, ecstasy, heroin, ice and magic mushrooms. There were also 20 positive random drug tests from festival-goers leaving the event on Monday. Three people have also been charged with supply.
"It is my hope that with the tragic death of the young woman and the number of drug detections the council will revisit whether or not the DA is approved for it to come back next year," Superintendent Dzevlan said.
"One [drug] detection is too many."
He said there were about 2500 festival-goers at Dragon Dreaming, and he thinks its drug culture makes it one of the most concerning Australian music festivals.
The tragedy comes after a 26-year-old man died at the dance music festival Defqon.1 in western Sydney in September, two years after another death at the same event. On the most recent New Year's Eve, a 26-year-old man died at the Falls Festival in Byron Bay from "popping one tablet", a few months after 19-year-old Georgina Bartter died at the Sydney Harbourlife Festival of a suspected overdose.
