SALT LAKE CITY — Names are already being gathered to possibly file a class action lawsuit after the events and cancellation at RedWest music festival this past weekend in Salt Lake City.
"We shepherded through the Fyre Festival, including the class action, including exposing what happened there, which led to criminal conviction and prison for the promoter and basically tried to hold responsible the people who were behind it, as well," said high-profile defense attorney Mark Geragos.
Geragos is known for representing celebrity clients, as well as filing a $100 million class action lawsuit in 2017 on behalf of the attendees of the failed music festival that he says share some similarities to what happened at RedWest.
"It appears they have a prima facie case — that this thing was not handled appropriately," he said. "It is an awesome responsibility you have when you’re putting that many people together in that kind of a short period of time, and you’ve got to take precautions... Most of the time these things work wonderfully, but there are always occasions when something calamitous happens, and that’s what happened here."
16-year-old Derrick Yerkes is garnering interest in a possible RedWest class action lawsuit. He has created an Instagram page with a form that people can fill out.
"My goal is to get as many people as we can that attended the concert to share their situation and get their information so we can hire a firm to help represent all of us," he said.
By Monday afternoon, just hours after setting up his page, Yerkes said he already had 500 people fill out his form.
"That's a lot of people who had a terrible experience," he said.
He said he attended the festival Saturday with his brother and a friend when the severe weather rolled in and they had to try to get out in a hurry.
"We waited over 20 minutes and were getting shoved all around just trying to leave the venue," Yerkes said. "It shouldn’t be that hard to reach an emergency exit. We were also leaving right away and it was terrible how it was handled."
Instead of getting money back that night, Saturday's ticketholders were invited to come on Sunday, but both Yerkes and Geragos say that's not an acceptable refund.
"If I was advising the promoter, I would say you do not want to go down this road. You want to make good with the people who bought the passes and anybody who was there – and hopefully you had insurance," Geragos said.
He said that insurance helps cover costs like these when something goes wrong — whether that's "force majeure" like severe weather or something else.
"You’ve got people who relied on the reservations that were made, you’ve got people who traveled, incurred expenses," Geragos said. "That's some awfully powerful evidence."
He said the fact that the organizers were sending ticketholders constant updates on the weather and their plans may help their case, however, demonstrating that they were trying to alleviate any issues and trying to accommodate everyone who had come from far and wide to see some of their favorite artists perform.
"If they were sending those real-time updates, that shows a sensitivity to it, and that’s to their credit," Geragos said. "You don’t want somebody to just say ‘rain or shine.’ And I don’t care if there’s a monsoon, you want them to be looking out for the festival goers. They’re not quite a common carrier, not an enhanced duty, but they do have a duty to the people they’re bringing there that it is indeed safe."
As for what he hopes in the future, Yerkes said, "I hope we can get compensation and get RedWest’s attention, and if that’s refunds, that’s great, but I’ve already been in contact with multiple law firms who are reviewing our case, and I hope we can eventually get everyone all that they deserve."
