The fifth BPM festival in Costa Rica – scheduled from January 8 to January 12, 2025 in Avellanas – is at risk of not taking place due to opposition from the Public Force and community organizations.
Rapes, using and selling drugs, excessive noise and assaults that have occurred during the festival previously are the main reasons the San José de Pinilla Integral Development Association, the Avellanas Chamber of Tourism and the Public Force oppose the activity, which plans to bring together at least 90 DJs on two night stages and one day stage in front of the beach in 2025.
The deputy director of the Public Force of Guanacaste, Larson Alemán, assured The Voice of Guanacaste that the institution rejected the security plan presented by the festival’s organizers, an essential endorsement for institutions such as the Ministry of Health and the municipality to also give their approval.
According to Alemán, the rejection is due to the police’s inability to provide security for the event on the dates it will take place because it coincides with other large events in the province and in the country: the Civic Fiestas of Carrillo, the National Typical Fiestas of Santa Cruz, Carrizal of Alajuela’s popular celebrations and the Typical Fiestas of Palmares are some that Alemán mentioned.
It’s very risky and hazardous to approve a plan because on those dates, we don’t have the operational capacity to be able to face any situation…. For that reason, we do not endorse this BPM on those dates,” he said.
In addition to the current criteria, after the 2024 edition – three weeks after the conclusion of the BPM from January 24 to 28 in Tamarindo – the police authority sent a letter to the Ministry of Health requesting that future editions of the festival not be approved since they collected 149 police reports, including 123 for drug possession and consumption, eight for violence against women and three for crimes against life.
The deputy director of the Guanacaste Public Force stressed that in the last two editions, they have had to attend to two women who were raped during the festivals. “They indicate that while they were inside, they were given a drink that put them to sleep and when they woke up, they had no clothes on,” he commented.
The head of the Chorotega Tourist Security Unit, Luis Chavarría, also sent a letter to the Ministry of Health pointing out incidents that occurred during the January 2023 edition.“
“As a result of these activities, there has been an increase in the disturbance of public order, due to the consumption of alcohol and other prohibited substances. In addition, cases of alleged rape of women, naked people wandering along public roads, thefts, among other crimes, have been delt with,” says the letter dated February 20, 2023.
Although large events have to have private security, Alemán commented that they generally respond to the interests of the festivals and they don’t protect the safety of the community and of those who attend the event.
What comes is to promote lack of citizen security, the risk to public health due to the type of consumption of synthetic and prohibited psychotropic substances, and also some cases of rape that women have suffered within that event,” Alemán said.
The Voice of Guanacaste asked BPM organizers for their position on the opposition of the Fuerza Pública and the reported incidents. The public relations department of the BPM Festival sent a statement in which they noted their commitment “with local authorities and stakeholders to address any concerns, as we believe in fostering positive relations with our host communities,” they said.
“(…) We continue to work closely with local authorities, including Public Force, through the standard permitting processes that govern all professional events and festivals in Costa Rica. Obtaining and complying with the necessary permits is a routine aspect of event planning in the country, which we have meticulously followed to ensure that all security measures exceed requirements and protect both our attendees and local residents,” they added.
Health permit under consideration
On the other hand, the health permit that the Costa Rican Ministry of Health grants is being processed, confirmed the director of the Santa Cruz Health Department, Warren Chavarría.
Chavarría did not rule out granting the health permit to the festival, although he commented that within the approval, they must take into account the denial from the Public Force. “These are criteria of the institutions that have to be taken into account and evaluated…. We must enter into the technical and legal evaluations indicated by decree 43432-S [for granting health permits] in order to be able to give a definitive answer,” he said.
“The institution that gives the approval will assume the consequences, because we are declaring that we don’t have the operational capacity [to provide security for the event], and all of the institutions should responsibly evaluate this and not approve these permits,” Alemán, from the Public Force, remarked.
Community organizations also disapprove
The president of the development association, Jorgelina Agramunt, described the festival as “invasive” for the community. “They set up for five days and sell drugs. There are people who take advantage of it to steal cars and property, as has happened in Tamarindo,” she commented.
They can’t come, invade and you don’t have the right to feel safe for five days in the place where you live and work. It’s a franchise that has always shown incidents of death, drugs, robbery, and violence in different places,” Agramunt listed.
The cases of death that Agramunt mentioned are the five people killed during a shooting in one of the editions held in Mexico in 2017. According to the Canadian media outlet Vice, the Mexican cartel Los Zetas claimed responsibility for the attack and issued a threat against one of the co-founders of the festival, Phillip Puritano.
To the vice president of the community’s tourism chamber, Carlos Carranza, the BPM festival “is a total intruder from every perspective: from the environment, the drugs that are consumed, the impact on the fauna. Everything is negative and I don’t see any benefit… It’s a total disrespect to our vision of development,” Carranza commented.
In addition, he argued that the community doesn’t have the infrastructure or the capacity to receive the approximately 6,500 people that this festival plans to host.
“We don’t have the water, the security, the waste management, access to the beach, or absolutely anything. We can’t sustain a festival of this type in this area,” remarked the vice president of the chamber.
On August 13, during the Municipality of Santa Cruz’s Municipal Council session, a group of community residents delivered a letter signed by 183 people from Avellanas and nearby communities, opposing holding the festival.
“Playa Avellanas is known for its family-friendly, peaceful and relaxed atmosphere, characterized by its natural beauty and the tranquility it offers to its residents and tourists. Holding an electronic music festival goes against this essential characteristic of our community,” says one of the five arguments in the letter.
The president of the council, Carlos Barrenechea Martínez, expressed his discontent with the festival during the session. According to him, the incidents that occurred in previous editions “are alarming… If I were in your shoes, I would be sitting there just like you, demanding that this event not come to my community.”
We agree that this event isn’t going to generate any moral or economic resources for the communities, because at the end of the day, they are foreign companies that are going to take all that money to other countries,” said Barrenechea
The letter asked the municipality to withdraw the permits from the municipality for the festival. But the festival still doesn’t have the necessary municipal permits for it to take place, according to what the person in charge of communications for the Municipality of Santa Cruz, Francisco Mairena, specified to The Voice.
Editor’s note: This note was edited on December 21 at 9:30 a.m. to add the position of the BPM Festival which, although requested for publication, arrived after the closing of editing and publication of this news item. It was also corrected that the January 2025 edition will be the fifth edition, and not the sixth as initially indicated.
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