Trancegiving was in full effect over the weekend at Dreamstate SoCal 2018, but it wasn’t all trance and rainbows. Unfortunately, pickpocketers were allegedly out and about and targeting ravers left and right.

Redditors warned of rampant pickpocketing during the event (see here), but this gang of phone and wallet thieves weren’t about to let up. Tons more firsthand accounts surfaced on Facebook groups throughout the weekend, such as Dreamstate (Unofficial). One of which that describes the following incident…

I got punched in the face last night at Gareth Emery. MANY of my friends had phones and wallets stolen. I felt a guy purposely grab at my pocket looking to steal it around 10 pm. I confronted him, of course he denied and immediately shows how he only has one phone and wallet on him (why would anyone immediately show that they are “innocent” and so willingly if they weren’t up to no good). These guys are professional criminals. They steal the phones then pass them off to their mule who is nearby and carries them. A group of my friends followed to find who he was working with while simultaneously getting security. He got away. But later in the night the exact same guy, in a newly purchased gray Dreamstate hoodie, was walking through our group so we followed him again. He got called out by a friend and we very quickly discovered another guy with them who had multiple phones in his cargo pants. Then one by one many others in the same gray dreamstate hoodies started showing up (all assumed to be apart of their gang). So they started to fight us for calling them out as we tried to contain them and get security. I got punched in the face during the commotion.

Here’s another account via Reddit…

Dreamstate 2018 Stolen Phones – I hadn’t seen a post about this yet which kind of surprised me. This year at Dreamstate my boyfriend had his phone stolen. In our group of friends, I know of 5 stolen phones. If you looked at the stages you would see empty cases everywhere on the ground from where they had stolen the phone and dumped the case on the ground. At Garth Emery I was told there was a physical fight where someone had caught someone stealing a phone. Just posting here to see if anyone had more insight into what happened this weekend? Or if Insomanic has said something formally about this. Lowball guess I would say at least 300 phones were stolen this weekend. Someone guessed around a 1000 phones stolen. This just makes me so sad. Dreamstate is a place of feeling safe and doing what we love. Sigh.

It’s beyond disappointing that these intruders came into a space that’s meant to be safe and violated it such a way. Still, the Trancegiving family kept their heads up and overall it sounds like the event was a great time. Gareth Emery, Ferry Corsten, Vini Vici, John O’Callaghan and more performed over the weekend.

Moving forward, let’s continue looking out for each other. When attending events, make sure your personal items are secured. Avoid putting your phone or wallet in your back pocket at all costs.

 

Photo via Dreamstate

This article was first published on Your EDM. Source: Dreamstate SoCal AKA Trancegiving Targeted By Pickpocketers

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