Festival Attendees Voluntarily Give Up More Than $40,000 Of Illegal Drugs At UK's Bestival

This year, festival-goers at the UK's beloved Bestival voluntarily handed in an astonishing amount of illegal drugs.

According to The Guardian, more than $40,000 in narcotics were given up by attendees voluntarily as they walked through the entrance of the festival, which was held Sept. 4, 5, 6 and 7 at Robin Hill Park in the Isle of Wight. The drugs were given up anonymously, and the move helped cut the crime rate by 12 percent. Law enforcement officials recorded 62 drug violations and 116 drug-related checks.

The festival, which has been around since 2004, featured the likes of Outkast, Chic, Niles Rodgers, Beck, London Grammar, Sam Smith, Candi Statton, Chvrches and Temples. This year was particularly special because the festivities included an enormous disco ball that broke a Guiness World Record. The shiny ball measured about 10.33 meters (about 33.8 feet) in diameter, shattering the prevous record of 9.98 meters, according to BBC News. It took about three months for creative firm Newsubstance to build the ball, which spun brightly during Chic's closing set.

"It's taken the team three months of blood, sweat and mirror tiles to design and fabricate this gigantic beast — it's been a fantastic journey," Mungo Denison, one of Newsubstance's employees, said.

The ball was used to bring the festival's Desert Island Disco theme together in an exciting way. "We don't do things by halves, we get immersive and take them head on, so we're very proud to have cracked the world record," festival curator Rob da Bank told BBC News.

Early bird tickets for next year's Bestival are already on sale.

Tags

Bestival, Drugs, Chic, Outkast, Chvrches, Sam Smith, Beck, London Grammar