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Nearly 250 arrested, 20 hospitalized at Beyond Wonderland rave in Inland Empire

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Nearly 250 people were arrested this weekend at a popular electronic music festival in San Bernardino County, authorities said.

At the Beyond Wonderland rave, 116 people were arrested Friday and 128 people were arrested Saturday, said Jodi Miller, a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

Most of the arrests were for trespassing, public intoxication and possession of ecstasy for sale, Miller said.

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Over the course of the rave, held at the county-owned San Manuel Amphitheater and Grounds in Devore, an additional 20 people were taken to Inland Empire-area hospitals. All except for one person were transported via ambulance, she said. One person was taken to the hospital by a sheriff’s helicopter.

By Monday, all had been treated and released.

Insomniac Events, a division of Live Nation that staged Beyond Wonderland, could not immediately be reached for comment.

In recent years, electronic music festivals have come under scrutiny for drug-related maladies and deaths among attendees.

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Last year, a 22-year-old UC Irvine student who attended Beyond Wonderland died after collapsing at the event. Investigators later concluded that John Hoang Dinh Vo had a fatal overdose of Ecstasy, according to the San Bernardino County coroner’s office.

There have been at least 23 confirmed drug-related deaths nationwide since 2006 among people who went to raves organized by Los Angeles-area companies. Eleven died in Southern California -- four in San Bernardino County and seven in Los Angeles County -- and five in the Las Vegas area.

Insomniac began holding raves at the San Manuel Amphitheater in 2013, following complaints of noise and drug use at festivals at the nearby National Orange Show Events Center in San Bernardino.

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Insomniac has since resumed staging events at the National Orange Show center, including last fall’s Escape: Psycho Circus.

After the suspected drug overdose deaths of two young women who attended a Live Nation rave at the Los Angeles County fairgrounds last summer, the L.A. County Fair Assn. said the group did not plan to host any raves at the complex in 2016.

For breaking news in California, follow @MattHjourno.

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