Fence jumpers, welcome to ‘Glastonbury jail'
The dairy farmer Michael Eavis dreamt up the idea for Glastonbury Festival after he sneaked in to see Led Zeppelin perform at Shepton Mallet showground in 1970. Now, 55 years later, a new generation of gatecrashers will this week head to Glastonbury, where the festival's security team will go to extreme lengths to keep them out, even holding intruders in a makeshift 'prison' on site.
When Glastonbury starts on Wednesday, about 200,000 people will arrive at Worthy Farm in Somerset to see acts including Neil Young, Charli XCX and Olivia Rodrigo. Some of those without tickets, meanwhile, will deploy ingenious methods to try to get through the 'ring of steel': a 4m high, 7.8 km fence with watchtowers that encircles the festival.
Alongside this physical barrier, Glastonbury spends huge sums on other aspects of security. This is understood to include hiring former members of the SAS and ex-police officers to patrol the perimeter, and using drones, guard dogs and infrared cameras to find trespassers. Eavis, 89, whose daughter Emily, 45, is now in charge of the day-to-day running of the festival, said previously that Glastonbury 'spends a fortune on security … more than the royal family'.
A music fan who was caught trying to break in last summer described the security as 'like Alcatraz'. The 26-year-old was among those last year who was placed in a holding pen on site which is known among revellers as the 'Glastonbury jail', but by staff as an eviction centre.
Jumping a fence to enter a festival such as Glastonbury is not just classed as trespassing, which is a civil offence, but fraud, because they are entering without a ticket, which is a criminal offence.
As a result, security staff on site are allowed to use proportionate force, under criminal and common law, to detain someone on condition that either they will be ejected from the site or the police will be called.
The fan said he was held in the 'jail' for six hours while staff prepared to drive him and a group of other trespassers to a station about an hour from the festival. Glastonbury staff allow transgressors to make a statement, and they can then be either evicted or arrested. They are taken off site or handed over to the police or, if they are vulnerable, to social services.
'The jail is a square with security fences surrounding it, a covered area for sitting and foil blankets which people were taking to sleep in,' he said. 'There was a weird mix of drug dealers, people who have been taken out of the festival for being too drunk or high, and those who had tried to break in. Drug dealers coming in were a spectacle — security were announcing the big dealers as they brought them in.'
A 27-year-old friend of the fan, who was also caught last year, added that it was obvious who in this area were the gatecrashers. 'People's legs were all scratched from lying in the brambles,' he said. 'We met a guy who had been scammed £4,000 for a wristband, while someone else had managed to get all of his friends in before him, but was caught trying to get through the gap in the fence himself.'
He added that he did not see any police. Staff took down the names and details of trespassers to try to prevent them from attempting to break in again.
While the holding area is called jail by trespassers, it still has some creature comforts. 'You can charge your phone and ask for cups of tea,' the first 'inmate' said. 'There were Oxfam representatives who were making sure you're OK, and the staff were super-nice. They kept us warm and fed us Pot Noodles.'
His friend added: 'It's really not that bad in there. There are sandwiches. They keep you there for ages though, you have to be 'processed'.'
The pair were held there on the Friday night of last year's festival and were told by staff that they had already caught between 200 and 300 gatecrashers.
Some inmates were forced to face a higher authority even than Glastonbury security, though. 'There was a group of 15-year-old boys who had tried to sneak in and security had called their parents,' the 26-year-old added. 'They were all looking sheepish. They had to stay until their parents collected them.'
The gatecrashing duo had themselves been caught twice: the first time in the VIP camping area where they said the security was 'the most geared up' with kit to help catch trespassers. 'They drove us out to the perimeter in buggies, and let us go [outside the exit],' the first gatecrasher said. 'They took pity on us. It's a cat-and-mouse game, and it felt like the security loved the whole thing as much as the sneakers-in do.'
The second time the pair were caught they were chased through the woods by security guards and could hear dogs barking. 'We were caught when the sun was coming up,' he added. 'We had collected a small squad of people who were also trying to break in. They rounded up about ten of us, searched us and then we were in a queue of cars which were waiting to bring people into the prison.' He said that last year there were even covert security guards dressed in Hawaiian shirts who pretended to be breaking in to catch actual gatecrashers.
There is a long tradition of trying to break in to Glastonbury. In the early years, Eavis, perhaps recalling the festival's roots, said that he did not mind people gatecrashing. In 2000 a teenage Jess Phillips, now the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, sneaked in to the festival to see David Bowie, and broke her ankle in the process.
The present fence was first erected in 2002, and the company that designed and installed it, Sunbelt Rentals, said it was 'virtually impenetrable'. According to Sunbelt's website, it features an 'external roadway to prevent tunnelling, 45-degree overhangs to prevent climbing and zero nuts and bolts to stop the fence being tampered with'.
Gatecrashers have therefore been forced to find ever more creative methods to infiltrate the festival. Two years ago, some music fan were reported to have dug tunnels to get under the fence, and their friends who had legitimately entered the festival pitched their tents against the barrier to disguise the tunnel's exit. Some try to scale the fence with lightweight telescopic ladders and rope, and others attempt to blag their way through checkpoints or simply make a run for the gates.
One possibly apocryphal story is that a reveller was smuggled in to the festival one year wrapped in a carpet, and another claims to have hidden under a van driving into the camping area. A widely shared post in an online forum from 2007 tells the story of the 'Twix Ninja', whose successful attempt to break in to Glastonbury was fuelled by the chocolate bars; many attempting the same feat now carry a Twix with them for luck.
Those hoping to break in discuss tips in dedicated WhatsApp groups, from scouting out satellite maps to putting on camouflage or high-vis jackets to pass themselves off as a volunteer.
Demand for tickets, which cost £378.50 including a £5 booking fee, was high for this year's festival, and they sold out in 35 minutes in November. There will be no festival next year to ensure a fallow period to allow the land to recover.
In recent years, some fans have complained about overcrowding on the site, with some even blaming gatecrashers in part for the problem. Emily Eavis said that the festival had sold 'a few thousand less tickets' in an attempt to ease the build-up of heavy crowds.
The organisers said: 'Glastonbury Festival thoroughly plans each year's event — where necessary with the support of the police and local authorities — putting in place all necessary measures to protect the public and maximise crowd safety. This includes actively restricting access to those without tickets, which is achieved via a variety of means, including our high security perimeter fence and our extensive professional security teams (both overt and covert).'
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