A number of people have reported experiencing eye pain, vision problems, and sunburnt skin after attending ApeFest, a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection event Nov 3-5th in Hong Kong. One person posted he woke up at 4am and could not see anymore. They rushed to the hospital where they are hoping to make a full recovery but were diagnosed with UV eye damage. It turns out, someone was almost certainly using full-spectrum UV-C (often called germicidal) lights instead of black lights.

The same thing happened at the Hypebest event in 2017 in Hong Kong. It’s not like this kind of harm is unique. Like the Jagermeister event that left a person in a coma, you better know your science.

BigClive on Youtube (who does amazing videos about extremely dangerous and counterfeit electronic devices you can buy and should be cautious of) recently uploaded a video and found the likely culprit. In the photo of the area with the toilets there were fluorescent tubes which are the characteristic teal-blue of mercury vapor discharge which emits quite a bit of UV-C and ozone as well.