Abstract
Music festivals are a large contributor to leisure noise/sound exposure for many people. Several days with repeated attendance to concerts can put the ears to a test they might not handle. It is well known that concerts can give "cotton" in the ear, often accompanied with a ringing sound. These conditions, more formally known as temporary threshold shift and tinnitus, are often gone within the next day or days. Since music festivals consist of many concerts, the damage potential is even higher at festivals than single concerts. In this study eight music festival participants, at two different Norwegian festivals, measured their hearing both before and after each festival day. Hearing threshold levels and distortion product otoacoustic emission levels were measured. In addition each person wore a sound dose meter recording one minute equivalent levels. An exposure/response relationship is looked into, testing the equal energy hypothesis used in most occupational regulations and concert guidelines. The results show that the ears are really put to the test during music festivals, but also indicates that the hearing can cope with such exposures.