Resident Advisor recently came up with an article that seems to be part of their damage control PR after they hosted and sold tickets for club events in Tulum, for wealthy tourists fleeing covid restrictions in their home country. 

What they failed to mention is that they hosted pages for around 230 events in Mexico, by our count, scheduled between May 2020 and the first days of April 2021. If we look back to March 2020, there have been well over 300 events listed in Mexico. Especially after last summer, most of these were on the Riviera Maya between Playa del Carmen and Tulum.

Around 50 of the events RA publicized since May were listed at “secret locations,” so it’s hard to believe they were carefully vetted. RA claims they “only ticket events that adhere to local COVID-19 safety guidance and laws,” but this concern apparently doesn’t extend to their non-ticketed events, or the wave of wealthy party goers traveling to Tulum and back. Local guidelines are not always appropriate - the state of Quintana Roo only implemented a mask mandate on December 15, 2020, weeks after the superspreader effects of the mid-November Art With Me festival originally made the news.

A promoter quoted by RA calls Tulum “the epicenter of the nightlife world right now.” This underscores how promoters and RA are exploiting locations with lax or failing governance at the moment. The risks are real: among the 20 countries in the world with the highest case incidence, Mexico has the highest rate of fatalities for those who contract the virus (9%). Quintana Roo has suffered a Covid-19 death toll of over 2,400, with a case rate of 1 in 73 people.

In RA’s article regarding the plague raves, as a “full disclaimer” they state the following.

“Full disclosure: Resident Advisor has ticketed 26 events in Mexico since May 2020, including events run by Rossé. This amounts to 520 tickets sold.” 

So here’s a rhetorical question, how come when major western cities shut down their clubs the leadership of RA had 26 events in Mexico ? Not only this but why have they publicized promoters’ events throughout this pandemic ? Are they going to write a statement everytime there is a COVID outbreak in one of the events that they host on their website, (ticketed events or no?). Also why omit that between May 2020 and now they supported something like 130 events in the Yucatán region.

RA cynically profited from those ticketed events until now and want to virtue signal when their art council check got cleared out ? 

I hope artists who are still working for this nefarious organization know what they are supporting.

Neo-liberal institutions can’t be reformed.