Published
Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 10:00
- The coastal town has remained a hotspot for local and international ravers in recent months—but at what cost? We speak to artists and promoters on the ground.
Tulum remained a party hotspot as Mexico's death toll from Covid-19 became the third-highest in the world.
Viral clips began to emerge from the coastal town, which sits in the southern Yucatán Peninsula, in November. The videos showed mask-less attendees dancing close to one another at the five-day Art With Me festival, an event of around 1,200. The backlash forced Quintana Roo's governor, Carlos Joaquín González, to issue a state-wide mask mandate after Covid-19 case numbers rose. But throughout the uproar, DJs and ravers continued to fly to Tulum to attend legal events, as death rates climbed and more contagious mutations emerged. In January, the New York Times reported that Mexico recorded the world's third-highest death toll, surpassing India. The death toll remains in third position at the time of publishing.
"I get ambivalent feelings about the way that people are doing things," Matthew Benjamin, AKA Bushwacka!, told Resident Advisor. The British DJ published a Facebook post in January strongly criticising DJs playing in Tulum.
"It just feels a little bit odd that it's OK to do things in Mexico but all the people that are arriving are coming from places where things aren't OK", he continued. "It just didn't feel like the right time when airports were closing left, right and centre, travel restrictions from many countries were getting stricter and stricter and people were being told 'do not fly unless you have to.' It felt like there was a sort of entitlement going on."
Benjamin isn't the only critic. Last summer's string of outdoors events in places like Italy, Tunisia and Croatia gave birth to the tag "plague raves" and drew scathing attacks from the likes of Dave Clarke, Butch and Discwoman's Frankie Decaiza Hutchinson. More recently, Bicep lent their voice to the debate in The Independent, calling the behaviour of "big DJs'' playing raves during the pandemic "absolutely disgusting."
Among the early critical voices was the Twitter and Instagram account Business Teshno, which launched in March last year. The group, based in Berlin, regularly posts videos of top-tier DJs playing to packed audiences during the pandemic. It has clips of Solomun, Marco Carola, Solardo and Father & Son all DJing in Tulum earlier this year. (RA contacted Solomun and Carola for this article, but received no response from Solomun at the time of publishing and Carola declined to be interviewed.)
Mexico's year-round warm weather and relaxed Covid-19 restrictions make it an attractive party destination. DJ Snakeman, one half of Father & Son, told RA how the duo came to play in Tulum. "We were in Ibiza and as everywhere was closed down we decided to come to Tulum," he said. "It was the only place in the world that parties were happening and everything was open."
Snakeman said he felt safe to perform because he and his DJ partner, Andy Cly, (who is also his son) were already immune to Covid-19, having caught the virus in August last year. Recent research suggests that a Covid-19 infection can protect a person from reinfection for at least five months, but people have been known to catch it again and infect others. Snakeman advised those who hadn't caught the virus to stay home, but saw no problem in attending parties for those he considered immune.
"If the people didn't have it yet, of course, they have to be careful because the virus can be dangerous but for my part, I don't know if it's necessary to shut down the whole economy," he said.
Father & Son said that they had played alongside Solardo, Richy Ahmed and wAFF in Tulum. (RA reached out to Ahmed and wAFF but received no response at the time of publishing. Solardo's management said they didn't play in Tulum in January.) This video, posted by Business Teshno, appears to show Father & Son and Solardo DJing together in Tulum.
Agustine, an Argentinian promoter and DJ based in Tulum, books local and international DJs for a well-known restaurant. "I've been living here three years, so I saw a lot of transformation," he told RA. "Many people from different parts of the world are moving to Tulum and now we have a bigger community of expats… Many people come here to kind of disconnect a little bit from the rules in their own place."
Agustine welcomes the influx of part-time international residents, in large part for the business they bring to the local economy, but was wary of the negative reputation the city had garnered in light of recent coverage. "We don't need famous DJs or, in my opinion, festivals" he said. "That's not good for Tulum, because that drives too much attention and when it gets on the news in America, they [the government] put more restrictions on people flying in, so I don't support big events."
A Spanish promoter, who runs the Rossé party, relocated to Tulum a few months ago, bringing his events with him. "Every week, promoters, DJs are moving here," he told RA. "This is the epicenter of the nightlife world right now." Rossé parties attract overseas tourists to their secret jungle locations, where phones are prohibited and ravers only learn about the event's whereabouts on arrival.
The promoter told RA that his parties were limited to 250 people with a dance floor that held no more than 40 people. He added that Rossé nights had "full Covid-19 protocols at the door" and "everyone needs to wear masks" at the seated event. He counts Michael Bibi and Marco Carola among recent guests. (RA reached out to Bibi and Carola but neither had responded at the time of publishing.) This video, posted on January 1st, is from the first Rossé event in Tulum. No one in the video is wearing a mask or appears to be socially distancing.
Quintana Roo, where Tulum is located, has one of the lowest death rates when compared to other Mexican states, according to the New York Times. But, as Art With Me festival showed, attending raves abroad can lead to outbreaks at home. The Daily Beast reported on attendees who got sick, and described the festival as a "COVID superspreader event."
Some say clubbing in Tulum has contributed to the local economy. Others say the lack of government support in the UK and Europe has forced DJs to work abroad to stay financially afloat. Benjamin remains unconvinced.
"Perhaps some of those DJs felt like they really did need to be there and they really did need money more than they needed to think about whether they were potentially putting people's lives at risk," he said. "I don't know, that's their decision. But I personally question that."
Full disclosure: Resident Advisor has ticketed 26 events in Mexico since May 2020, including events run by Rossé. This amounts to 520 tickets sold. Our worldwide policy is to only ticket events that adhere to local COVID-19 safety guidance and laws. During the pandemic our Tickets team introduced protocols to monitor all ticket submissions and reject those that are illegal, or where the promoter was unable to provide info on their safety guidelines when directly requested by our Account Management team. As a result of this reporting, RA is suspending the ticketing of all events in Mexico, whether permitted by the local government or not, while we review the situation further.
Photo credit: Benjamin Bindewald