Yes, that was the general argument for why it's hard/expensive to insure a festival. But all the problems with Fyre festival were the fault of those who organized it. (Or didn't organize it, I guess.)

And the insurers saw how wrong it can go and how much the payouts for such could be. This then was fed back into the risk / premium calculation equations and have kicked out a new, higher number for festivals that lack a history (and even those that do have a history, as the risk has gone up too). Furthermore, as insurers tend to spread the cost around (the festivals with a good history, and the festivals with little or no history), the festivals with a good history will pick up a bit of additional cost for insurance to make sure that insurers have enough to be able to cover possible losses.

There's the other side to the coin too. Now, a bunch of con men saw how easy it is to swindle a bunch of idiots for thousands or tens of thousands of dollars and even get them to fly to a remote island before making away with the money. This will attract some bad characters and that's why it's time to ship out a piece like this. It's a hit piece to highlight the punishment and tightening controls to keep the con men at bay from trying the same thing. Smart.

I don't understand - how could assault or rape be the responsibility of the event organiser? If people are being dicks they should be paying for it, not the event's insurance.

From the article:

> In late June, Insomniac Holdings LLC and Live Nation Entertainment Inc. were sued for the wrongful death of attendee Tom Nicholas at the Electric Daisy Carnival festival in Las Vegas, alleging the event made it difficult to access water and medical staff. In 2016, the mother of Emily Michelle Tran, who died at the HARD Summer Festival in 2014 after taking MDMA and having a seizure, sued Live Nation for negligence and wrongful death. Insomniac and Live Nation declined to comment on the litigation.

The key there was the difficulty accessing staff. For assault and rape, the organizer could be at fault if there was insufficient security staff, or the hired staff ignored an issue allowing for negligence. Furthermore, if the security ignored an individual who was drunk and belligerent leading to an assault or rape, that would also be an issue. With the prevalence of drinking at such events and security missing or overlooking such an event, this is a very real concern for insurers.

If something bad happens to you at a festival, why would you sue the festival? In the words of Willie Sutton (who was talking about robbing banks) "That's where the money is."

There's a large body of law in the U.S. on the responsibilities of "dramshops" (places that sell alcohol) and social hosts.

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/alcohol-related-accid... is a good place to start your research.

I think it's purely an English law thing (?) but have you heard of Vicarious Liability, it's kinda crazy what a company can be liable for.