A group of ravers from Bristol, England, is going viral after they welcomed an autistic camper into their Boomtown crew and helped him realize his dreams at his first-ever festival.
Adam James told BBC West that his father, Andy, was concerned for his safety before he traveled to Boomtown, one of the UK’s largest electronic events and widely regarded as its best for drum & bass, earlier this month. But in a post shared on Facebook last week, Andy thanked the “lads from Bristol” who adopted Adam into their rave fam for the weekend and ensured he enjoyed the event. The post has received over 30,000 likes on Facebook.
“I’d like to thank these guys from Bristol who befriended my son, who has saved all year and worked so hard to get to his first ever festival,” Andy James wrote. “All the family were really on edge (including his sister, who’s a boomtown veteran) that he would find it too much, as he’s autistic and boomtown has a saaaaavage reputation, right in the middle of a heatwave too.”
After Adam lent the group a mallet to help set up their tents, they invited him to camp with them and moved their tents together: “Straight away, we moved his tent into our circle, and he said, ‘Are you sure about jumping in with you boys?’ And I said, ‘Of course, without a doubt, it’s not even questionable,’” Bristol raver Ciaran Herniman told the BBC in a video interview published yesterday, after Adam and his crew were reunited at a pub in Bristol this week.
“He just run up to me crying, he said, ‘I’ve found my people, I don’t want to ever leave. This has been the most amazing time of my life,” Andy told the outlet at the rave fam reunion. “I wrote this post just to say thank you to the mums and dads. Their parents probably don’t know their kids have just done something absolutely amazing. They’ve done it out of kindness and sheer bloody humanity. You don’t get much of that nowadays.”
“They didn’t have to take me in,” Adam echoed. “They could have just left me there, they could have just ignored me, but the fact they saw me, that I was on my own, and they just took me in was just amazing. It’s what the community’s about really, and it’s made me see in a different light. They didn’t judge me for a second, and that’s what I love about it.”
In the time since his dad’s post went viral, Adam, who is also an aspiring DJ, has landed several local DJ gigs.
Watch the video report courtesy of BBC West below.
Featured image courtesy: BBC West / Ciaran Herniman.