The organizers of a major Swedish music festival have canceled next year’s event after reports that dozens of women were sexually assaulted at the festival over the weekend.
Four rapes and 23 sexual assaults were reported at Bravalla, which bills itself as the country’s largest music festival. One woman said she was forced to have sex with a man after changing her mind, according to AFP.
“Words cannot describe how incredibly sad we are about this, and we most seriously regret and condemn this,” according to a statement on the festival’s website. “This is not f–king okay. We do not accept this at our festival.”
This marks the second time that the festival has come under fire for a spate of assaults and groping. Five rapes and 12 assaults were reported at the event in 2016, prompting UK band Mumford & Sons to pull out of the event. They vowed that they wouldn’t play the festival again unless the organizers and police could assure them that appropriate safety measures had been taken.
“Certain men … apparently cannot behave. It’s a shame,” FKA Scorpio, the German company that organizes the festival, told AFP. “We have therefore decided to cancel Bravalla 2018.”
The decision followed a statement from Sweden’s prime minister, Stefan Lofven, who called the incidents “obnoxious acts by deplorable men.” Lovfen, speaking at a news conference Sunday, said Swedish police need to do a better job investigating sex crimes and that Sweden needs more video surveillance at such events.
The Chainsmokers, Ellie Goulding, Linkin Park, The Killers and Martin Garrix all performed at this year’s festival, which took place from June 28 to July 1 in Norrköping, about two hours south of Stockholm.
The festival began in 2013 and typically draws crowds of between 40,000 and 50,000 people. Roughly 45,000 tickets were sold this year.