A man has died after allegedly consuming a cocktail of illicit drugs at a music festival in New South Wales’s Riverina region.

The 24-year-old man was brought to a medical tent about 12.45am on Sunday at the Strawberry Fields music festival at Tocumwal, police said.

Medical staff were told he had consumed multiple substances including GHB, MDMA and cocaine. Soon after, he had a heart attack and despite the efforts of the medical staff, he was pronounced dead at 2.02am.

Festival organisers said they were “devastated” by the man’s death and expressed their condolences to his family and friends.

“We have implemented every single harm minimisation strategy that is legally available to us, run in-depth education campaigns on the dangers of drug use, and worked closely with all stakeholders to ensure we are in the best possible position to prevent and manage an incident like this,” Strawberry Fields said on Facebook.

“However, we cannot control the choices of individual patrons. We are begging people to stop and think about the ramifications of their choices.”

Police Superintendent Jason Weinstein said drugs were illegal for a reason. “They are dangerous items and any drug can kill,” he told reporters on Sunday.

“Whether it’s one (drug) or a combination they all have dangerous effects and can in their own right kill people.”

Weinstein said he understood the 24-year-old had taken a “cocktail” of drugs.

Police also charged 29 people with drug-related offences at the Festival X music festival at Sydney Olympic Park on Saturday.

Of those, three men and one woman were charged with supplying prohibited drugs.

Weinstein said most of the 45,000 Sydney revellers behaved exceptionally well and the number of drugs found was “substantially” down on previous years.

As part of a trial, 13 people found with prohibited drugs were dealt with by way of infringement notices and fined up to $400. All of the drugs seized were MDMA.

Police conducted 130 searches at Festival X including 31 strip-searches.

The first death of the summer festival season comes as the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission is set to begin public hearings into the strip-search of “several young people” at the Lost City music festival, an under-18s event held in Sydney in February.

Set down for this week, the hearings form part of an ongoing investigation by the NSW police watchdog into the practice of strip-searching minors, and come amid increasing scrutiny of the possible misuse of the controversial police power.

The LECC hearings will shine further light on the use of strip-searches on minors after public hearings in October revealed the allegedly illegal strip-search of a 16-year-old girl at the 2018 Splendour in the Grass festival.

The inquiry heard the girl was left fearful and in tears after she was forced to strip naked and squat in front of a police officer who then “looked underneath” her. The search took place without a parent or guardian present, a potential breach of police powers.

Last month, Guardian Australia revealed police performed strip-searches on more than 100 girls in the last three years, including two 12-year-olds and eight 13-year-olds.

The Guardian also revealed other instances of potentially illegal strip-searches, including a woman who recounted a female officer having “jiggled” her breasts during a search when she was 15 years old in 2011.

The revelations prompted the NSW Labor opposition to call for a review of the laws governing strip-searches, with the shadow police spokeswoman, Lynda Voltz, questioning the justification for using the power against children.

The police commissioner, Mick Fuller, defended the use of strip-searches. In a front-page interview with Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, he said young people should have “a little bit of fear” of police and claimed reducing strip-searches could lead to an increase in knife crime despite less than 1% of all searches in the state being conducted for that reason.

In NSW, officers are only able to conduct a strip-search outside of a police station if the urgency and seriousness of the situation requires it. In the case of minors, a parent or guardian must be present unless an immediate search is necessary to protect the person or prevent the destruction of evidence.

However, the use of the practice in the context of music festivals has drawn considerable criticism.

During LECC hearings in October, the commissioner, Michael Adams QC, questioned under what circumstances – apart from a suspicion someone was hiding drugs in a body cavity, which police are not allowed to search – it would be urgent for an officer to conduct a strip search at a music festival.

That question, to a senior constable who worked at the 2018 Splendour in the Grass, prompted the officer to concede that all 19 strip searches he conducted at the festival may have been illegal.