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Raves Can Return To Coliseum -- But With Restrictions

LOS ANGELES (CBS)  — The Electric Daisy Carnival, an electronic-music festival that came under fire last year when a 15-year-old girl died from an ecstasy overdose, will be allowed back at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the stadium's governing body decided Wednesday.

The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission agreed to allow the two-day festival to be held at the stadium, but with several restrictions. For one, crowds must be limited to 75,000 people a day.

Festival organizers assured the panel that they planned to boost security and have more first-aid stations at the event, along with more secure fencing. Video taken at last year's event showed crowds scaling chain-link fences to get into the concert, bypassing entry lines and security checks.

The commission imposed a moratorium on rave events after 15-year-old Sasha Rodriguez died of an ecstasy overdose. The panel lifted the moratorium in November, and in December adopted a series of guidelines aimed at making the events safer. Those guidelines included:

-- requiring rave-goers to be at least 18;

-- giving wristbands to anyone 21 or older, so that concession workers can tell who is old enough to drink alcohol;

-- instituting "cool-off" breaks during the show;

-- closing all raves by 2 a.m.;

-- briefing event staffers about drug overdose symptoms and heat

exhaustion;

-- requiring that medical personnel be on site in case of an emergency; and

-- offering warnings about ecstasy and other drugs during public service announcements and in materials handed out during the festival.

The Electric Daisy carnival is scheduled for June 24-25.

 (©2010 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)

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