Organisers of the BPM Festival that starts on Thursday, 14th September and runs until Sunday in Praia da Rocha and Parchal, expect to a sell-out with 10,000 tickets available for the underground, house and techno dance party that has relocated after a ten year run in South America, to the Algarve.
Portimão council says that it "intends and demands" that the BPM Festival is safe, so 115 personnel have been drafted in from Portimão Firefighters, the National Institute of Medical Emergency, the Portuguese Red Cross, the Maritime Police, the Public Security Police and the GNR.
The multi-site festival is spread across venues in Portimão with the exception of the Arade congress centre over the river in the Lagoa council area.
According to Portimão council, "the festival is expected to attract 12,000 people with a maximum sales ceiling of 12,000 tickets, of which 9,500 are already sold to customers from ten different countries." The festival organisers say they expect 10,000 people and have not released a total ticket number.
Portimão council says that all participating venues are fully licensed for this sort of dance party and access control measures have been defined.
BPM is one of the biggest electronic music festivals in the world and is being held for the first time outside of its home in Mexico.
At the last show, in the Mexican town of Playa del Carmen in January, a shootout involving drug cartels left five people dead and 15 wounded.
This is one of the reasons for the festival’s move to the safety of Praia da Rocha, although the organisers claim the two events are not related. The council and security forces are determined that there will be no trouble, certainly not ‘Mexican style.’
See: BPM Festival