Inga Mauer was sent to jail for the night while Marie Davidson was thrown out of the Helsinki festival
Marie Davidson has detailed her experience with security at Flow Festival on 12 August. In a Facebook post, the artist recounted how she noticed security were holding down “a girl on the ground while she was screaming”. As it turned out, it was Russian DJ Inga Mauer. Davidson described how security “violently dragged her out of one of the festival area because she refused to leave right away”. Two hours before the incident, Mauer had played a set on Resident Advisor’s Front Yard Stage.
Mauer was, as Davidson described, “extremely confused and scared”. During the altercation, Mauer was in shock, crying and “bleeding from her knee.”
Upon trying to explain to security that they were both artists, the two were “put aside, in a corner, isolated from the rest of the crowd” and subsequently, Mauer was sent to jail. Davidson recalled how the guards “threw me out in the street out of the festival zone.”
“I told them I needed to at least be in touch with someone because I had no internet, no driver and no taxi where taking people to any place at this hour,” she said. “They laughed and said ‘go figure it out’ and then closed the fence leaving me in an total unknown place without any ways of reaching out for help. I had to ask strangers in the street to help my find a taxi to my hotel.”
Read Davidson’s posts below.
Update: In a statement to Fact, Flow Festival have taken responsibility for the incident and apologised. “Serious discussions” with lawyers and security organisation Local Crew Oy are currently underway. Read the full statement below.
“We, the three partners of Flow Festival, Suvi Kallio, Tuomas Kallio and Toni Rantanen, are still at a loss for words and very sad about the episode that happened at the Flow Festival area early Sunday morning. Inga Mauer and Marie Davidson are artists and lovely friends who Toni Rantanen booked to perform at the festival. It came to our knowledge that members of the security staff had used violence against Inga Mauer. Marie Davidson, who approached to try to help her, was inappropriately thrown out of the festival area. Even the police who came to sort out the situation acted threateningly and refused to give us any information after taking Inga Mauer to jail overnight.
Flow Festival does not approve the use of violence and we were shocked and very sad to hear this. We are truly sorry for what Inga Mauer and Marie Davidson had to go through.
Luckily we have video, photos and eyewitnesses. As festival organizers, we take responsibility of this incident and will make sure everything will be investigated and taken care of properly. Serious discussions are underway with our lawyers and the subcontractor Local Crew Oy that was responsible for Flow Festival’s 2017 security. Compensation for the victims must follow and something similar can never ever happen again. The security company has been a trusted subcontractor for many years but now they have failed to do their job in the right manner.”