Not less than 15 guests at Yuga Labs’ Apefest, a celebration of the marvels of Bored Ape Yacht Membership NFTs, might have skilled severe eye accidents. Bloomberg experiences that a number of folks attending the NFT occasion in Hong Kong final weekend say they skilled imaginative and prescient issues, which they think stemmed from the occasion’s stage lighting. A few of the attendees declare medical doctors subsequently recognized them with photokeratitis (aka “welder’s eye”), attributable to publicity to ultraviolet (UV) gentle.
“Awoke in the midst of the evening after Apefest with a lot ache in my eyes that I needed to go to the hospital,” the consumer Crypto June posted on X (through Coin Telegraph). “Physician informed me it was as a result of UV from stage lights.” Person @docwagmi suspected that the “ape associates” reporting issues appeared to have been “up shut with us entrance stage.”
In the meantime, Adrian Zduńczyk wrote on X, “To all my associates that suffer now: go get your eyes checked. You’ve doubtless most actually acquired your eyes burnt with UV like I did, which requires drugs, eye drops, eye safety, antibiotics and specialist care. Don’t ignore this well being hazard. With out correct therapy, it might trigger lengthy lasting imaginative and prescient impairment and different severe harm.” Zduńczyk wrote that in search of medical consideration shortly seems to have spared him long-term harm. “My imaginative and prescient was examined as near good with no severe cornea harm, fortunately.”
Yuga Labs briefly addressed the problem on X, saying it’s “conscious of the eye-related points that affected among the attendees of ApeFest,” whereas claiming it’s “proactively reaching out to people since yesterday to attempt to discover the potential root causes.” The corporate downplayed the variety of folks reporting points, including, “Primarily based on our estimates, we consider that a lot lower than 1% of these attending and dealing the occasion had these signs.” The NFT firm suggested attendees experiencing signs to “search medical consideration simply in case.”
X customers appeared none too happy with Yuga Labs’ PR response:
From the PR staff:
– Guys utterly downplay it, make it seem like a small quantity, eg… lower than 1%
– Make it seem like you are actively serving to and fixing
– Attempt to ‘Discover’ the ‘Potential’ root causes, though we all know precisely what it wasBruh
— Shad (@madladshad) November 6, 2023
The doubtless harmful incident echoes one in 2017 when attendees of a HypeBeast occasion reported eye harm. The occasion’s DJ later reported that the lighting contractor used Philips bulbs that emit UV-C, usually used as a disinfectant.
