July 20th, 2014 
James Shotwell 
According to the Toronto Sun, a twenty-one year old man died Friday afternoon at Pemberton Music Festival in Pemberton Valley, British Columbia. The man, who has since been identified as Nick Phongsavath of Regina, was found inside his tent near a row of portable toilets.
Now I know that a lot of these stories end up having to do with drugs and people who do not understand their own limits as far as taking drugs are concerned, but the death of Nick Phongsavath may be another story entirely. Initial police reports have offered no cause of death and claim that foul play has not been ruled out. In a tweet sent early Saturday morning, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s Integrated Homicide Investigation Team wrote, “IHIT team deployed to Pemberton for a suspicious death.” The IHIT is, according to their official website, responsible for “investigating homicides, high-risk missing persons and suspicious deaths.”
“IHIT is working closely with the Sea-to-Sky detachment and have been interviewing witnesses and speaking with event attendees throughout the night,” said IHIT’s Sgt. Jennifer Pound. “At this point, there is nothing to confirm or definitively rule out foul play.”
The festival continued on in spite of the discovery, though reports claim a little more than 50 people who had been camping on site were relocated while IHIT completed their investigation. The festival concludes tonight.
It seems like every week we run a story about another young soul losing their lives during a major music event and to be perfectly honest it’s starting to bum me out to an extreme degree. Summer music festivals are meant to be times of celebration and fun, not nightmarish hell-holes where people drop dead and no one knows why. Take care of each other this summer. Please.
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