Overview

• Walker’s prevention-of-future-deaths report warns that an “unchecked, open and free” trade in illicit drugs at Boomtown poses a continuing risk of fatalities.
• Current enforcement only ejects attendees carrying dealer-level quantities or paraphernalia, allowing casual users to re-enter after confiscations.
• Boomtown organisers and Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary face a statutory duty to propose safety measures in response to the coroner’s recommendations.
• Winchester City Council reviewed the festival licence but chose not to alter any conditions ahead of this year’s event.
• Since its 2009 inception, Boomtown has recorded five deaths, most recently the MDMA overdose of 22-year-old Benjamin Buckfield in August 2024.