NFT festival goers 'nearly lose their eyesight' thanks to 'immersive' tech event

Several Bored Ape Yacht Club members have taken to X/Twitter with claims they almost lost their eyesight at the Yuga Labs’ ApeFest event in Hong Kong.

The festival is famed among the crypto-curious community, with panel discussions and chances to mingle with other web3 creators and collectors.

Since the event took place over the weekend, a string of injury claims hit social media. At first, some believed the tweets were "some sort of joke or an isolated incident".

Another agreed, writing: "So wait I thought it was a meme but did people really get eye damage at ApeFest?"

They soon learnt there were many alleged incidents online.

"I woke up at 4am and couldn't see anymore," one attendee wrote. "Had so much pain and my whole skin is burned. Needed to go to the hospital."

They went on to claim that the doctor informed them it was due to the festival's UV lights. "It has the same effect as sunlight," they continued. "Still can not see normally."

Another jumped in to say they too were experiencing the same symptoms.

"Yes, me too," they wrote. "3am woke up eyes burning I could barely open them."

A third panicked attendee turned to social media to see whether there was a "common thread" on X, after waking up with "extreme pain" and ending "up in the ER".

The Bored Ape Yacht Club's official X account has since acknowledged the "eye-related issues that affected some of the attendees of ApeFest," and said they were reaching out to people to try and get to the "potential root causes."

They continued: "Based on our estimates, we believe that much less than 1% of those attending and working the event had these symptoms. While nearly everyone has indicated their symptoms have improved, we encourage anybody who feels them to seek medical attention just in case."

While it has not yet been confirmed what caused the alleged injuries, one person said it "seems" as though the festival used "UVC lighting used for disinfecting".

They claimed that such lighting can cause "harmful skin & eye burns photokeratitis, temporary blindness is possible, but hopefully after 2 days everyone should be ok".

Indy100 reached out to the festival organisers for comment.

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.