Pill Testing at Australian Music Festivals

Festival Drug Checking Services

Pill Testing Australia (PTA) is harm reduction program that operates under the auspices of Harm Reduction Australia. PTA is the first organisation deliver drug checking services in Australia. Since our establishment in 2017 we have been at forefront of this movement in Australia from leading the first pill testing trial at Groovin the Moo in 2018, to securing the first fixed site pill testing service (CanTest) and pioneering multi-day festival testing at Rabbits Eat Lettuce in 2024. Since 2017 we have tested X samples and provided harm reduction advice to over X people. 

PTA staff are highly experienced professional with diverse experience in harm reduction, public health, and drug checking. Our staff have a collective 20 years’ experience delivering harm reduction services in festival settings and we know that each event is unique. We work closely with festival promoters, medical, police and security to deliver an integrated holistic model of care in partnership with all on-site stakeholders. 

PTA festival service delivery is comprised of a highly qualified and experienced multidisciplinary team of chemistry experts, harm reduction workers, public health experts and peers. For every service activation we recruit additional health professional and peers from local services to ensure our team is familiar with the community needs and local health service network. All team members receive training prior to each event to ensure service delivery is tailored to event, latest evidence and emerging trends. 

Our non-judgemental service never promotes the consumption of drugs. Everyone- without exception- is advised that if they want to be 100% certain of avoiding any harms associated with drugs, they’d be better off not taking any drugs. We inform people accessing our service what substances we identify, the limitations of our testing equipment, the risk of taking the identified substance and provide tailored harm reduction advice to reduce the likelihood they will need to access medical assistance. To find out more about the equipment we use go our FAQ [link]

At your event Pill Testing Australia will provide:

  • Drug checking equipment including a FTIR, fentanyl test strips and Ehrlich reagent tests
  • Highly experienced team of analytical chemists and harm reduction workers 

Pill Testing Australia Service Requirements:

  • Inclusion in EMT meetings, and pre & post event stakeholder meetings
  • Appropriate infrastructure 
  • Radio’s 
  • Accreditation
  • Insurance

If you would like to work with PTA, please reach out to us here:

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.