my personal experience of crime, fence-jumpers and security issues is way up this year after no probs at all last year. Just my experience.

Purple People Eater shit, that sucks big time. If you are from Brum then i heard about this from Primate, if not, then there is another couple of people that this happened to that I am aware of. Good luck with any procedings you undertake.

tavdy79 hello, and great post. I'm still far too angry about this to speak that plainly.

security, i completely appreciate that you have come here to try to give your firm's side of the story, and admire how you have managed to stay mostly civil in the face of our anger, but festivals are not nightclubs, the same rules do not apply. And also, just like to say that like Bigby, I've been caught twice by the Police and never taken to the station or even cautioned - the worst i got was being told to be a bit less blatant as I was in a public park & there were kids around.

There is an unspoken understanding between society & festivals - there have always been times of the year where the normal rules do not apply and the workers get to go mental, it's what oils the wheels of society - a break from the norm. Most of the people who go to festivals like this are working hard to scrape a living, paying taxes into a security system that will never be able to support our futures, locked into wage slavery by the cost of living. We need these breaks and all the fun we can pack into them. If you are going to have any success in festival security, then you need to understand this, just like the police and give us a fucking break, don't ruin the only real fun we get.

I'm trying not to get into threats or dire predictions of what will happen if you don't sort this out, partly because I'm completely aware of how hard it is to run security (I've done my share of shifts on the Harris fencing) and from what Nick (Glade) says in that email DBM posted, reported thefts were down, so you didn't do a completely shite job. But mostly I'm holding my tongue because there is nothing to be achieved by threats but unhappiness. Festivals need security - I need festivals personally and business-wise. So the mere fact that you are trying to work in this area should be encouraged, but please, I ask you to seriously take these points on board -I doubt it is too hard to identify the likely culprits of the bad behaviour in your firm. Get rid of them, or, if you are the sole voice of reason, for fuck's sake jump ship sharpish. Because that was no way to run a festival.


(edited for clarity)

i think some peoples expectations of security or police at events differ, to me they are just a bottleneck of concern just like at any club door or festival gates. it's not like you're gonna have bottles & spliffs hanging off you like key phobs, dangling in the wind & rattling for attention is it? it's good that people report these goings on so maybe we can all be a bit less blatant & steer a wider path from these guys on site. hope they focus their attention more on the perimeter next time rather than harrassing party goers. a job of perimeter patrolling would be much easier if the fence was at least a major obstacle to most opportunist jumpers & NOT JUST the jackanory show fence near the site entrance.

Well put lady jane.

I was lucky enough that I didn’t have any personal problems with security; apart from seeing them driving like idiots. I have been to many festivals in my time, in different countries and I think this years Glade seemed to have more security within the arena than any other I have ever been to. That is the impression I got at least. This is totally wrong. As people have said they should be on the perimeter. If there were any signs of problem within the arena then the Oxfam stewards could have called them in.

This may be slightly controversial, but I don’t have any problem with a small number of police within the arena. It helps keep people a little bit sensible, with not starting trouble and not being blatant when dabbling in the "dark arts". I have been caught skinning up by police before who have turned a blind eye as they are generally experienced enough to know that stopping people from smoking spliffs at a festival is more trouble that it is worth, and if people are sensible they should never have the opportunity to catch people doing anything else. Sorry but if you get caught racking up some lines on the edge of the dance floor that is your fault, and you should have been more careful.

The problem with security performing this role is there is no real comeback if they do something shitty, unlike with the police (in theory at least) At least the police all have numbers if they are being out of line and can be reported. Also, the vast majority of coppers are in it for the career and so generally won't dabble in a bit of corruption and take cash or possession of people coz they had a small amount of personal on them. Security however, are totally unknown, unidentifiable, have no come back, nothing really to lose and in my experience are erm, 2 acts short of a festival shall we say (sorry Security, I am sure there are some sound security out there at festivals, I am just yet to meet them)

Anyway, rant over. was still an amazing festival. as good as last year. It is just a shame to read stories from all you people who had unnecessary trouble from security who are meant to be there to help and protect, not beat and screw.

Mod Edit: unsupported accusations of criminality are libellous. If you want to accuse people of drug dealing and robbery without offering any supporting evidence, find your own site to post them on. Better still, have the guts to post it to the Newbury local rag using your real name and address.

STAVVY303 wrote:Mod Edit

Totally agree mate, they changed the atmosphere completley. Reading all of the stories on this site has made me realise how lucky I was not to have dealings with the c.u.n.t.s myself. I did witness them being totally off their heads themselves though; double standard twats!

never saw or heard anything bad about them until i came on here, tbh. however, i did hear (on site) that security were getting caned (missiles thrown) by people on the outside.

salx wrote:never saw or heard anything bad about them until i came on here, tbh.

This is the whole problem, there now seem to be people recycling what they've heard third or fourth hand, complete with all the usual embellishments, and treating exaggerated hearsay as established fact.

If anyone has had direct, personal experience of criminal behaviour by the security guards or anyone else, they need to report it to the police, the Glade organisers and the security firm involved.

For example, the incident described in here by Lady_Jane and others has been corroborated by several people and clearly needs investigating, so I don't have any qualms about it being posted about on here. But we can do without rants that appear to be based on nothing more than so-called "Chinese whispers", in all honesty.

In my opinion, I have never seen more debatable secuirty. Te way they drove around at high speeds with no care for the people around them. Often in the dark.

I had no problems with them but I did see a few incidents. A few times, i applauded the way they behaved - im not sure why this incident happened, but i saw them camly whisking off a few people, without forced restraint or voilence. This IMO was dealt with correctly and peacefully.

Another incident i saw though was more negative - secuirty being very rough with osmeone sat camly on the floor. again not sure why this happened, but this guy wasnt going anywhere, and these meatheads ran up and rugby tackled him and pinned ihm on the floor, even though he was calmly seated. No need for it IMO.

There were loads of fencejumpers - on the saturday morning me and a mate saw loads of pikey lookin people - now im not one to judge on looks but these were proper pikeys - in large gangs, with no qwristbands at ID spiral early morning, callig people fuckin hippies when they walked past and insulting the stuff about them. Where were security to sort thi out? considering at this time of morning this was the only arena open surely security should have been doing their annoying flashlight searches into peoples eyes and faces??

maybe crime was down on last year, and well done if it was. but surely there are better people to hire. if i have paid extra money this year, i dont want it to be wasted on a team of security that includes, among some nice securtiy staff, egomaniac, paranoia inducing c**ts.

dont mind my french, i just think some people working for this so called security firm need a lesson and need discipline. id like to hear if shadow secuirty are checking out any of these allergations, how about drug testing some of your staff- i saw quite a few smoking joints which is fir enough, but with all the allergations of some of your staff taking class a's for personal use, id be a bit worried.

buzzingtalk wrote:id like to hear if shadow secuirty are checking out any of these allergations,

I don't know if anyone has made a formal complaint to any of the security firms yet. If anyone has, can they say so here?

If nobody has taken the initiative yet, maybe people off the forum could draft one? Tavdy's post seems to cover pretty much everything, so maybe use that as the model?

That was my intention with that post, DBM - if people want to use all or part of it for complaints letters etc, they're very welcome to do so.

DBM wrote:

Taloen Loch wrote:So that's confirmation from the organisers that at least 500 people jumped the fence. Jesus, how many more were there that didn't get caught?

You were camped in the area where most fencejumpers got in both this year and last year. Last year I saw several fencejumpers get in, this year I saw none. Last year everybody in our camp had our tents rifled through, this time nobody anywhere near us did.

I have yet to see one shred of credible evidence that crime was worse this year than last. In fact, I'm inclined to agree with Nick that it was considerably lower.

It's just that the idea of applauding the catching of five hundred fence-jumpers is so ridiculous. Surely the fence wasn't worth the extra money if so many people found by-passing it so easy? And maybe the drop in crime means the link between fence jumping and tent burglary is less than was previously imagined or perhaps just that the serial criminals of the previous year took the weekend off. For me there are more important reasons for stopping fence jumpers than reducing the crime levels. People learning to not leave valuables in less-than-secure tents would do more for that than all the fencing in the world. Stopping the fence jumping at the fence would go a long way to removing all security teams from the arena and would create a more pleasant experience for all.

Taloen Loch wrote:It's just that the idea of applauding the catching of five hundred fence-jumpers is so ridiculous. Surely the fence wasn't worth the extra money if so many people found by-passing it so easy?

Well, that was an interim reply. I don't think they've actually read the feedback on any of the boards yet, but they will.

I agree there are some serious issues to be addressed, that's why I started this thread in the first place. I hope they do tackle this head-on. There's no doubting their ability to deliver on the festival itself and infrastructure matters such as the toilets etc - look at all the first-time Gladesters who said this was the best festival they've ever been to as evidence of that. The PR side of things has traditionally been their Achilles heel, let's hope this improves.

it's sad but if more of this rogue element appears & people keep shouting blue murder on here & other places then i can't see much in the way of keeping it in it's 'innocent' state like the first year. it's natural progression, any event will attract twats & although i was astounded at my first glade as how friendly & trouble free it was, being realistic i would think that is just a romantic notion & could not last forever. it's us that need to adapt the most.... oh & if glade were a bit more honest about what they're gonna do (like the first two years) then that would help a great deal.

For every one saying they did not see anything, well I and my mates did. I cant say what those incidents were, but I seen them. I seen people being led away from the ID Spiral by security when I could not tell why they were being led away, and I seen people having there tents searched in a heavy handed fashion. One group sticks in my mind on the path up to camp GT from the ID Spiral probibly in the eavening of the Friday. The group did not look like dealers to me although that is no proof of anything.

The problem I have is that I seen enough incidents that I was unsure of for the stories of abuse to ring true for me.

I was not going to the glade to be vigiliante citizens minuteman. So I was not looking for problems with the security. Perhaps I made a mistake.

I think before festival season next year some people need to get there heads together and check out what our rights really are, and distribute them round all of the festival message boards.
That plus a policy of taking snapshots and videos of every time you see security doing anything you may question and it will perhaps go a small way to making everyone safer, and getting security to focus on fence jumpers.

dance dissadent wrote:The problem I have is that I seen enough incidents that I was unsure of for the stories of abuse to ring true for me.

.


That plus a policy of taking snapshots and videos of every time you see security doing anything you may question and it will perhaps go a small way to making everyone safer, and getting security to focus on fence jumpers.

I know it sounds a good idea but i'm sure the security we had the misfortune of meeting would be more than happy to pose for photos videos etc , i think you may find your cameras will disappear into the twilight zone if you know what i mean.

AcidTekno303 wrote:

dance dissadent wrote:The problem I have is that I seen enough incidents that I was unsure of for the stories of abuse to ring true for me.

.


That plus a policy of taking snapshots and videos of every time you see security doing anything you may question and it will perhaps go a small way to making everyone safer, and getting security to focus on fence jumpers.

I know it sounds a good idea but i'm sure the security we had the misfortune of meeting would be more than happy to pose for photos videos etc , i think you may find your cameras will disappear into the twilight zone if you know what i mean.

With cameras that would be a problem, with phones it wouldn't - if you take a photo with a mobile, it can be online within a minute via WAP - so all you need to do is take a pic with your mobile, then immediately email it to yourself. That way, even if they take your phone and empty it of photos, you've still got the pics online where they can't access them.

BTW, since Security aren't the police, removing anything not related to drugs or other crime and that you can prove is rightfully yours is stealing, and in a court of law you would win. If you can prove that their motives were less than pure, any case you brought against them via the police would actually bolster any later cases to do with assaults (which would likely take longer) since the removal of your camera/phone would be considered proof that security were aware that they were going too far at the time.

Of course, the simple answer would be to make sure they don't know you made the video - which is surprisingly easy if you have a small camera or phone.

Perhaps several of the forums could get together and create a central repository site where security-thuggery videos could be posted, which victims could browse and then use relevant videos as evidence. Such a site would also have the advantage of naming and shaming "bad" employees to the companies - I greatly doubt all the security personnel are guilty of bullying, intimidation, thuggery etc. - and would encourage them to act professionally and responably.

security wrote:




We dont make the rules up and have to work to strict guidelines with the new SIA badge which all of work under. Just lets say that you walk by me and you decide to take a big line of coke in front of me and i ignore it and theres a undercover police officer that sees me ignore it and not deal with it.

I would lose my door badge and would not be able to work again for anything upto 10 years and all because you or whoever wants to take drugs openly.

you really think undercover OB would have the time to do that? they would be more likely more concerned with the drugs than who is the security?

and how can they prove you didnt see rarther than turned a blind eye.


shadow security had some appalling incidents put against their name, and i am confident once teh glade organisers get wind of it, rthey will look for another company next year.

what takes the piss is rthe bullying of quite defensless people. If shadow security had acted the way you were at some of other event like global gathering, i riot could have been caused.

i think some of the security took the piss beacuse they could. Defenseless kids out of their heads is easier prey, compared a load of rudes.


i noticed it was more the 'hippy' looking people picked on. I dress more 'casual' and had no bother all weekend, and some security knew what i was up to, as i was blatent at times.

scranner wrote:

security wrote:




We dont make the rules up and have to work to strict guidelines with the new SIA badge which all of work under. Just lets say that you walk by me and you decide to take a big line of coke in front of me and i ignore it and theres a undercover police officer that sees me ignore it and not deal with it.

I would lose my door badge and would not be able to work again for anything upto 10 years and all because you or whoever wants to take drugs openly.

you really think undercover OB would have the time to do that? they would be more likely more concerned with the drugs than who is the security?

and how can they prove you didnt see rarther than turned a blind eye.

But why should security take that risk on another's behalf?

Taloen Loch wrote:

scranner wrote:

security wrote:




We dont make the rules up and have to work to strict guidelines with the new SIA badge which all of work under. Just lets say that you walk by me and you decide to take a big line of coke in front of me and i ignore it and theres a undercover police officer that sees me ignore it and not deal with it.

I would lose my door badge and would not be able to work again for anything upto 10 years and all because you or whoever wants to take drugs openly.

you really think undercover OB would have the time to do that? they would be more likely more concerned with the drugs than who is the security?

and how can they prove you didnt see rarther than turned a blind eye.

But why should security take that risk on another's behalf?

That being precisely the reason why any security personnel with even an ounce of common sense are going to avoid situations where they're likely to have to deal with drug use - if they see and ignore it, they risk losing their license; if they see it and come down heavy (as Shadow did) they risk causing violent confrontations - in contravention of their contract! Pacifism is a fairly strong zeitgeist element at Glade - I wonder what would have happened if they'd acted like that at other festivals, where that's not the case? I greatly doubt the security companies would have been able to cope if they'd started a major incident - beyond a certain point, sheer force of numbers will outweigh virtually enything.


N.B. Over on DSI there's a guy being prosecuted for possession with intent to supply (the guy wasn't a dealer, but did have drugs on him). The case is likely to fall through because his tent was searched against his permission, was searched by Security not the police, and there was no warrant to search it (legally your tent is equivalent to any other "dwelling", like a house or flat). I'll update as more info surfaces...