Earlier this month, thousands of people attended the two-day Yours and Owls festival in Wollongong, New South Wales.

One of those people was me, but I wasn’t going (only) to see The Veronicas.

No, I headed to the regional festival because it was the first to participate in NSW’s first-ever pill-testing trial.

Read on to find out how the trial came to be, and what it was like on the ground.

The trial at Yours and Owls didn’t come out of nowhere — it follows years of calls to increase drug safety at festivals.

Between 2001 and 2019, 64 people died of drug-related causes at Australian music festivals. Six of those occurred in NSW between December 2017 and January 2019.

More recently, in 2023, two more people died at festivals in NSW.

The decision to green-light a 12-month trial at festivals follows advice from a NSW drug summit last year.

While it’s the first time pill testing has been trialled in the state, it’s not the first time it’s been recommended.

The previous Coalition Government consistently rejected recommendations for a pill testing trial, citing concerns it would give users a misleading sense of safety when taking illicit drugs.

This festival’s service was conducted similarly to how other states have run theirs in recent years.

Under the trial, tents are set up at festivals for attendees to have their drugs chemically analysed, identifying potentially harmful or unexpected ingredients.

The process is confidential, anonymous, and takes about 15 minutes.

Once the drugs are tested, health professionals review the results before medical advice is relayed to attendees through peer support workers.

Over this two-day festival, more than 100 people visited the tent.

Eighty drug samples were tested, with MDMA, ketamine, and cocaine being the three most common substances brought in.

NSW Health experts say 11% of samples turned out to be a different substance than participants had expected.

In several cases, people discarded their drugs as a direct result of speaking to the on-site experts.

Despite the actual pill-testing area being a safe space, in the lead-up to the festival, the festival organisers, the State Government, and NSW Police stressed that unlawful activity would not be tolerated across the rest of the festival site.

I did notice a strong police presence on the ground at the festival.

A mobile police unit was set up by the entrance of the festival venue on both days. I also saw officers with sniffer dogs conducting drug searches as people entered the event.

By the end of day two, police charged 23 people with drug possession.

Pill testing is an initiative that has gained increasing support among young people and festival-goers over recent years. In my conversations with festival attendees, many praised the service, calling it “a step in the right direction”.

While that support hasn’t always been reflected by governments, Victoria, the ACT, Queensland, and now NSW have begun trialling pill testing.

NSW Premier Chris Minns said the move is about saving lives, not encouraging drug use.

The trial still has months to run, so we’ll be sure to kee you updated as more information about its progress comes to light.

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