Massive gay festival gives off Fyre Fest vibes after douching station disaster prompts emergency shutdown

It’s all fun and games… until the douching station gets shut down.

The Whole Festival, billed as a multi-day celebration of queer euphoria, was held over the weekend outside of Berlin. The three-day event included camping, workshops, art installations and performances from dozens of German and international DJs.

That sounds pretty awesome; and indeed, it seems as if many attendees enjoyed themselves. But unfortunately, not everything went according to plan.

The douching station crapped out!

What a bummer.

As a pilot experiment, organizers set up a special area in which revelers could properly prep themselves for sex. For five euros per visit, partygoers were given a douching attachment for the shower head, and the instructed to clean the shower stall thoroughly before returning the attachment to staff members for proper disinfection… whatever that means.

“Please help to keep this service nice and clean,” the advertisement read. “We don’t want to create a s***** situation for the staff helping out with this.”

File this one under: ideas that seem better hypothetically than in reality. The organizers may have been well-intentioned, but they overlooked one critical detail.

Douching is pretty gross! Not to mention, unsanitary.

While the advertisement pleaded partygoers to fully relieve themselves elsewhere, you can probably guess how things went down.

Literally read this with my head in my hands— Tara Carpenter’s Missing Inhaler (@sympathy_simm) July 28, 2023

Not “return for disinfection” — ivan (@ivan_3690) July 28, 2023

It’s moments like this where I actually understand where the homophobia is coming from. I really get it— Andreas (@ImJustAndreas) July 28, 2023

Making small talk in the queue pic.twitter.com/dVlLdaQkVD— Patch (@PatchMcScratchy) July 28, 2023

When you’re nearly at the front of the douche queue and it smells like sulphur and despair up ahead pic.twitter.com/j9tYUn3zBG— Patch (@PatchMcScratchy) July 28, 2023

Despite the organizers’ pleas for pleasure seekers to follow proper douching etiquette, the station was apparently shuttered when attendees used the attachment for more than its intended purposes.

UPDATE: The douche station has been closed because people were doing their ‘main shit of the day’ there

My thoughts and prayers are with all the bottoms at Whole Festival rn pic.twitter.com/xB4bLAE2qy— Patch (@PatchMcScratchy) July 30, 2023

realising your main shit of the day just blocked the douche station pic.twitter.com/7YsrZdj88m— Patch (@PatchMcScratchy) July 30, 2023

This is just too chaotic— Ross (@Terrabang_) July 31, 2023

STOP IVE DIED AND ASCENDED TO HEAVEN — Nathaniel J Hall (@NathanielJHall) July 30, 2023

I need a Netflix documentary about this festival— D (@betbinch) July 30, 2023

In a statement, Whole Festival’s press team disputed the allegations about the douching station being shut down. “Our douching station was up and running the entire festival. It was closed for some hours for scheduled cleaning and to fix lights,” it read.

Umm…”fix the lights?” Honey, we don’t want to know.

They better not put this near the food kiosks pic.twitter.com/9MRN2OzIsj— V. Cadaverini (@East_) July 28, 2023

We are truly living in a golden age!— M3 (@MMMugan) July 28, 2023

Ooooooo I’ll stay home— nicholas dante (@nicholasdante_) July 28, 2023

Every day we stray further from god’s light— David (@DaveyBlahBlah) July 28, 2023

Then again, given the food they were serving at this festival, it isn’t all that surprising the douche station was flooded with more than it could handle.

Meals consisting of pasta and fried onions aren’t exactly conducive to good digestive health.

It’s the chopstick wrapper saying “ENJOY” that does it for me— Scott Bryan (@scottygb) July 30, 2023

E
N
J
O
Y— Robert Stagg (@robert_stagg) July 30, 2023

babe what’s wrong you’ve barely touched your jam chopsticks— Lulu Nunn (@lulu_nunn) July 30, 2023

well that’s just going to cause havoc at the douche station— michael (@mjrgrs) July 31, 2023

I’m in shock at this— toni collette’s instagram account stan account (@HarryPhillips15) July 30, 2023

Dirty douche stations; disgusting food. The Whole Festival was giving Fyre Fest vibes.

Too bad Andy King wasn’t around to save the day and work his magic powers. These starving (and presumably dirty) gays definitely could’ve used some nice, bottled Evian.

Obsessed with your updates on the gay Fyre fest do them more frequently pls! There are gaps in the timeline— Conall (@conallgribben) July 30, 2023

This is starting to feel like a gay Fyre Festival— and he’s just Joe (@JoeNockles) July 29, 2023

Now, there is a long history of mishaps occurring at massive, outdoor festivals. At Woodstock ’99, for example, revelers frolicked in human waste.

At Whole Festival, at least the bathroom mishaps were seemingly contained to a singular station. It did look like a fun time… for those who weren’t counting on the douche station, of course.

So there you have it. Whole Festival was either the apex of gay culture, or the nadir.

We can’t wait to see what unfolds next year, assuming everyone douches at home.