HW Glastonbury Fayre on BBC2

[M Holmes]

Nick Lee writes:

> > ObWeirdest: Seeing a potential interloper coming down the field behind
> > King's Meadow on Thursday night and then seeing an ornage vested guy run
> > *up* the hill after him. "Hmmmm", I thought, "that's never happened
> > before. I guess Mean Fiddler mean business."

> We didn't make it due to lack of organisation & it sold out.  Despite all
> the hype, the fence didn't really look that much bigger this year.

I had a close look at the fence. It may have been a foot or so bigger.
The real differences were:

A) There was a bendy metal overhang at the top. This meant that
grappling hooks couldn't get a grip of the top of the actual fence and
therefore were functionally useless.

B) The whole fence was linked
together in a way that would have taken several minutes work with a two
foot wrench to undo. That prevented people coming through it.

C) There was a flat and linked fence on the ground outside the main
fence. This meant that any tunnel had to be at least 12 foot long,
effectively preventing tunneling under the main fence. This was also
used as a road outside the fence for the landrovers. There was also a
complete smaller fence outside of this road.

D) At the top fields there was also a fence inside the main fence and
landrover patrols around this. This also prevented the sabotaging of the
support posts for the fence by those inside. Added to this, the support
posts were cross-braced to the bottom of the fence and so would have to
be unbolted from it rather than merely uprooted ffrom the ground. Again
this would require several minutes with a two foot wrench. Effectively
this prevented the fence being knocked down from the inside as has
happened in previous years.

E) There were the usual watchtower guard posts with searchlights.  They
were all constantly manned this time.

F) There were video cameras on post inside the fence. These were linked
to a control room which advised where breaches were likely to be
attempted.

G) A helicopter with what I took to be an infrared rig flew around the
fence constantly during darkness. I assume, but don't know for sure,
that this would detect people even under trees?

H) The passout system was more complicated. People had to have a
wristband, the half of their ticket with the hologram, and some said
they were doing those ultravoilet tattoos at some point as well.

I) Folks carrying in what was perceived as more than personal use
amounts of alcohol had it confiscated and any bottles spotted were also
taken. Crew also reckoned there were Customs people on site. Certainly
there was a lot less selling of alcohol on the main paths and I got some
of mine under the table in the crew field. There was noticably less
blatant selling of drugs other than cannabis and only hash truffles were
really being sold openly.

J) Didn't see any pets all weekend. I assume that they were strict about
this too.

> Sounds
> like the security were actually doing something this year.

That made the difference. The folks usually recruited by Glastonbury
would often help people over the fence. I think they had orders to do
this after 120 people broke their ankles one year. Roskilde is what's
made the big change as I assume the politicians are keen to avoid
something like that happening at an overcrowded Glastonbury. Undoubtedly
100,000 ticket-payers last year followed by 100,000 interlopers easily
qualified as dangerous overcrowding.

The security people were proactive about challenging people in fields
outside the site or car-parks. If someone got over the first fence then
a landrover was called to intercept them. Each one had a cop and so
those caught could be arrested or offered a place on a bus to Bristol.
According to festival radio, three people got across the main fence. One
was intercepted between the main fence and the third fence and two got
over to find they'd broken into the security compound. Of course they
wouldn't know if someone had made it, however I spotted very few people
without wristbands inside the site.

The gates were charged by large groups several times, once with bottles
and stones thrown and some security people injured. They had a
"lock-down" procedure practiced for this where they basically shut the
whole gate system at that point. Since the punters were then held up,
they made their displeasure known to the miscreants.

Inside they were very proactive about preventing entry to entertainment
tents once they were deemed full, and also cleared people away from
entrances. I only got to listen to XHawkwind from outside due to this. I
also saw a large security team sweep the Sacred Field on the Monday
morning. I asked what was happening and they delivered what was clearly
a party line of "We're here to protect you, not prevent you having a
good time" and was then told that they were after a gang that had been
spotted raiding tents. I saw one arrest but they may have got others.
I'm guessing that they must have cameras mounted in the camping fields
in order to spot that kind of behaviour.

I'd also heard from some crew that large fires had been banned.

So all in all, it's the kind of security provided at other festivals
except that there's still no checking for valid passes when moving
between fields (something that makes T In The Park a nightmare of
queueing apparently). My impression was that it worked very well for
those on the inside. It was far less crowded and the risks from that
very much lowered. Consequently the infrastructure worked much better
and the toilets could be emptied before overflowing; the bins could be
emptied and the litter problem lessened, and the fire and security
trucks could get around because the tracks were kept clear from campers.
Stewards and the radio declared some fields closed to further camping
and directed people to the new campgrounds (used to be the west car
parks) where there was still space. That lessened the risks of fires
being too close to densely camped tents.

The problems were clearly outside in the car parks. Those who were
frustrated on the outside stole cars and stole from them. Depending on
who you ask, between 200 and 400 people were mugged in the car parks for
their tickets, money or both. I'd heard of people who wouldn't risk
going to their car for stuff. Clearly this is something that'll need to
be tackled by the cops and security next time. The worst incidents were
someone being attacked with an iron bar in the car park and
hospitalised; someone being hit and run by a stolen van in the lanes
outside and found dead in a ditch; someone found dead in their tent (no
other persons sought so I'm guessing overdose or something). There were
a few thefts from tents, but nothing on the scale of previous years.
Overall crime was down by close to two-thirds inside the fence, pretty
clearly indicating that those locked out were more likely than ticket
payers to be the source of crime. There were also three security guys
arrested for beating up punters and taking their tickets from them. It's
not clear what this was about but reading between the lines of what I've
heard, there may have been some overenthusiasm about identifying those
who'd mugged someone else for a ticket.

By and large, Mean Fiddler have done a difficult job quite well. If they
can crack the problem outside the fence then I think they'll finally
have taken the festival back from the criminals. The two ways I can
think of to do that would be to do what they'd said they would and stop
cars or pedestrians getting into the lanes at all unless they can all
show tickets, or to simply implement a no-passouts rule and have folks
enter from the carparks once when they arrive and leave once when they
depart. It'd limit people to what they could carry but for camping
that's generally enough. That'd make identifying troublemakers in the
carparks much more straightforward.

FoFP