Washington Outdoor Music Festivals — RCW ch. 70.108 (medical items at RCW 70.108.040(8)) with WAC ch. 246-374[1]
Summary
Washington's Outdoor Music Festival Act, enacted in 1971, is music-festival specific rather than a general mass-gathering statute. RCW 70.108.020 defines the covered event as an assembly of persons gathered primarily for outdoor, live or recorded musical entertainment where predicted attendance is two thousand persons or more and the duration of the programme is five hours or longer, exempting permanent venues and government-sponsored fairs. The permit comes from the county or city issuing authority, filed with the clerk not less than 90 days before the first scheduled festival day, with a $2,500 application fee. RCW 70.108.040(8) requires written confirmation from the local health officer that plans have been reviewed and approved, with criteria expressly including "(l) Emergency medical facilities; (m) Emergency air evacuation; (n) Attendant physicians; (o) Communication systems." The current implementing rules, WAC ch. 246-374, contain only nine sections and include no codified medical-staffing section and no physician or ambulance ratios.
So what
Washington is the only jurisdiction in the survey that names emergency air evacuation as a permit criterion, so the medical plan must address rotor or fixed-wing evacuation explicitly alongside attendant physicians and emergency medical facilities. Because no numeric standard survives in the current WAC, medical adequacy is a case-by-case determination by the local health officer, who also retains residual authority when a health hazard exists or is developing before, during or after the festival and may waive, modify or approve reasonable alternatives. Budget a 90-day permit runway and treat health-officer engagement as the negotiation where staffing levels are actually set.