Bored Ape creator says UV lights at ApeFest burned attendees’ eyes and skin

Enlarge / People walk by a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT billboard in Times Square on June 23, 2022 in New York City. Sunglasses would have been a good idea for this year’s ApeFest. (credit: Getty | Noam Galai)

Lamps emitting ultraviolet light in the corner of a Bored Ape NFT event in Hong Kong last Saturday are the likely cause of severe eye and skin injuries among attendees, according to Yuga Labs, the creator of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and host of the event.

The injuries reportedly occurred during “ApeFest,” a three-day annual meet-up of people who own Bored Ape NFTs—which sell for tens of thousands of dollars and, amid the 2021 NFT craze, saw highly inflated prices of hundreds of thousands of dollars. However regretful, owners of the cryptocurrency-backed, digital images of nonchalant cartoon primates are automatic members of the BAYC. This year, their annual club event ran from November 3–5 and promised “mayhem” and “One big night full of surprises.”

Soon after an ApeFest party Saturday night, some attendees reported severe pain and burning sensations in their eyes, as well as vision problems and skin irritation, according to Yuga Labs. Doctors and others on the Internet quickly speculated that the cause was UV exposure and photokeratitis (aka snow blindness, arc eye, or welder’s flash), which is akin to a sunburn on the cornea (the clear tissue covering the front of your eye) due to exposure to UV light. The New York Times reported as of Tuesday that the number of attendees injured was over 20.