The EDM community has been all kinds of "he said/she said" over the last few weeks (months? years?)... and this news piece continues the trend. It involves serious claims of security roughing up a DJ, and details a weird situation involving one of the more popular festivals worldwide. Let's get down to brass tacks.
Yesterday, Darius Syrossian (a house DJ/producer from Leeds who won DJ Mag's "Best New Producer" award during their "Best of British" Awards in 2012) stated that security had assaulted him at the BPM Festival in Mexico, which kicked off on January 3 and ends on the 12th. From what Darius claimed, he was initially playing the festival at a loss (he says he paid $2000 to get to the festival, but was only making $1000 for his set), and was having issues getting the people on his guestlist in (they ended up having to pay to enter the festival); he even states that when he got to Mexico, the organizers didn't have him on the list of DJs performing. Midway through his set, he went to the organizers to ask when his guests were going to be let into the event, to which he says they stated "who the hell are you, go away." He states that 20 minutes later, Craig Pedigrew and security approached him in the DJ booth as he was dancing to Steve Lawler's set, punched him, and threw him to the back of the booth. He says he was then dragged through the crowd and was apparently told that he was wasn't going to leave Mexico, that he was dead, and that they would make it look like an accident. He says that Lawler told the security and organizers to leave him alone. In terms of damages, he says he can hardly move his knee.
In the same Facebook thread, Andrew Christoforou (who stated he was managing the show on behalf of BPM) ran down his side of the story: he says that the guestlist Darius sent in did not include all of the people who showed up at the door that night. He says that whatever verbal altercation Darius had with the woman who was in charge of getting guests in was sent into tears after Darius' outburst, and left the venue because of this. He later says that Craig approached Darius to speak about the guestlist situation professtionally, but says Darius told Craig to "fuck off," something which Andrew says he saw first hand. He says they had security with them, and asked Dairus to leave; when he refused, the security grabbed Darius, who resisted. He does agree that Lawler was playing a great set, but it wasn't that Steve saved Darius; Andrew says he did, as to not disrupt Steve's set. They ended up grabbing Darius' equipment and walking him out (Andrew notes that Darius' knee wasn't injured because he was able to walk out with security).
This morning, BPM Festival spoke exclusively to Mixmag to give their official word on the situation, stating that any accusations involving a physical altercation "are completely false." They say that Darius played the opening set at the VIVa Warriors showcase, then was "asked to leave the club towards the end of the night after he verbally assaulted our staff, making a female staffer cry, and continued to berate the Directors of BPM." He is said to have been escorted out, and given cab fare to get back to his hotel. In regards to how Darius got to BPM, they state that "all label showcases, including VIVa Warriors, are paid a lump sum and they are responsible for arranging fees internally and paying their artists." BPM does provide ground transport from the airport as long as their flight information was in at a certain time.
So, what really happened? Who's to say. There is a manager of the event and the BPM representatives that say an assault did not occur. Darius says he has proof of what he's claiming, though. What that could be is anyone's guess... maybe he's checked into a hospital to detail his injuries? We'll see. All we know is this he said/she said never ends well, and until someone else steps up to corroborate Darius' story, he's fighting a losing battle. We'll see how this one plays out.
