Bored Apes Yacht Club party turns perilous, attendees suffer UV eye injuries and burnt skin

More than a dozen people who attended a Bored Apes Yacht Club NFT convention in Hong Kong suffered eye pain, vision damage, and skin damage from lasers and UV lights at a dance party.

The next morning, attendees went to Xitter to describe their symptoms:

• "Woke up in the middle of the night after Apefest with so much pain in my eyes that I had to go to the hospital … Doctor told me it was due to the UV from stage lights. I go to festivals often but have never experienced this."
• "Anyone else's eyes burning from last night? Woke up at 3am with extreme pain and ended up in the ER. I saw a couple reports but just trying to figure out if there was a common thread."
• "I woke up at 04:00 and couldn't see anymore. Had so much pain and my whole skin is burned. Needed to go to the hospital. The doctor told me the uv of the lightning of the stage did it. It has the same effect as sunlight. Still can not see normally."
• "So far, 30 hours since woke up with severe eye burn, I've visited emergency hospital and eye clinic and spent there a total of 6 hours. Got diagnosed with "photokeratitis over both eyes, accident related" with prescribed steroid eye drops and eye lubricants. My vision was tested as close to perfect with no serious cornea damage, luckily. So many of my friends are still unaware they must seek medical help to make sure they end up with no damage, as well. Please go get your eyes checked immediately. We've most likely been exposed to experience similar to Mt Everest climbers – snow blindness."
• "I have been a loyal community member for over 2 years. My ape is not only the most expensive thing I own, it is one of the only things I own. I had my parents give me a loan so I could attend ApeFest, and now I am drowning in eye related medical bills I don't know how to pay."

The creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club, Yuga Labs, downplayed the incident, saying in a: statement: "Apes, we are aware of the eye-related issues that affected some of the attendees of ApeFest and have been proactively reaching out to individuals since yesterday to try and find the potential root causes. Based on our estimates, we believe that much less than 1% of those attending and working the event had these symptoms. While nearly everyone has indicated their symptoms have improved, we encourage anybody who feels them to seek medical attention just in case."

About 2,250 people attended the event.

Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs are digital drawings of apes. There are 10,000 of them. Some people think that the hyperlinks to the drawings are valuable.

The laser light isn't the only thing that has burned Bored Ape Yacht Club collectors as of late. The floor price of a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT is currently around $50,000, down from a high of $485,000 in April 2022, a collapse of nearly 90%.