r/Wellthatsucks • u/mattloaf666 • 9h ago

Reading festival 2026

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u/Jackariasd 8h ago

I was a volunteer in the campsite at Reading festival in 2008 and 2009 with a friend. It was exactly like this, a destitute wasteland of inexplicable tent abandonment. As part of the clean up, we went around with a wheel barrow collecting unopened cans of beer, each tent seemed to be a treasure trove for us as 18 year olds. It was all fun and games until he found a cooler box in a tent. Opened it up and inside was a singular, well preserved, human turd.

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u/Low-Outlandishness14 8h ago

I was there in '09 and it was chaos, everyone seemed more concerned about drugs and burning tents down every night. Genuinely horrendous experience

Im sure some people were there for music and a good time but that isn't my memory of it

Took my tent home and didnt shit for 5 days so dont look at me....

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u/bradstokes 8h ago

I was there in 09 and it was horrific. The Saturday night was pure chaos. I remember the field next to mine had flames 15-20ft high from a bonfire made of tents but the fire marshal decided to come to my tent instead and extinguish a fire I had made in a bean can...

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u/Demoliri 7h ago

Wacken in Germany was also like this. My last time was in 2010 and in the camp site after the last day the fire brigade were just driving from one campsite to the other putting out tent fires. People were stacking up hundreds of tents into a pile and setting them alight. The whole area stunk of melted plastic, it was horrid. I was also there in 2005 and 2007, and it wasn't quite as bad, but still a mess after the last day.

Needless to say I haven't been back to Wacken since, and I instead go to smaller festivals.

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u/anondreamitgirl 7h ago

They need to start introducing large fines for littering

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u/Demoliri 6h ago

Incredibly difficult to enforce I think. Without mass surveillance, how will they know who each tent belongs to? And even if they have video of them abandoning their tent, they then need to ID them and track them down. Then there's the issue of international guests, which make up a huge percentage of these bigger festivals.

In theory I would love it to be punished, but I have no idea how to make that work.

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u/MyLifeBeTenshi 5h ago

The best "solution" I've encountering at most festivals in Germany is to charge a "trash deposit" with the ticket, and refund it if you brought a full trash bag to a trash point. Deichbrand was clean AF this year after people left

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u/Shamanjoe 2h ago

That sounds like an awesome idea.

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u/Demoliri 2h ago

They do this at Summer Breeze and Party San, and last time I went to Metaldays in Tolmin (in 2019 I think?) they also did this. It definitely helps to a degree, but it has to be enforced and the deposit has to be meaningful.

For example, in Metaldays the deposit was only €5 and they accepted the deposit bags when a single empty can of beer was in them. That festival was moderately clean, but I don't think that the deposit bag had anything to do with that as it was just as clean before they introduced it.

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u/MarketingSad5312 59m ago

Exactly. The idea is good, but the enforcement is everything. Otherwise people just treat the deposit as another small festival expense

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u/dikicker 28m ago

Ah, the Aldi shopping cart method, works like a charm

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u/strat-fan89 5h ago

You pay for your festival ticket. If you select camping, a 500 [currency] hold is put on your credit card. Each tent gets an RFID tag on arrival where your tickets are checked. They cost next to nothing. Your tent is registered upon entry. If your tent is not registered again when you leave, the 500 [currency] is deducted from your account.

Alternatively, you could do spot checks of cars while leaving the area. Someone has a three day pass with camping and leaves with a nearly empty car without a tent? Boom, 500 [currency] fine for you. Yes, you really DID agree to these terms and conditions while purchasing your tickets. Yes of course you may go back and clean up your (any) campsite and have your fine wiped.

Two ways, just from the top of my head. Definitely not perfect. I bet there would be others and possibly even better ones. People would only need to care.

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u/eggrolldog 3h ago

Haha guess you don't know the reprobates at Leeds/Reading; you'll have some psychos going round cutting out or otherwise destroying everyone's RFID tags. Then they'll still leave their tent and steal someone else's once it's taken down for them.

2

u/strat-fan89 2h ago

Then apparently you cannot hold a large festival in that area. 🤷🏼‍♂️

1

u/Loose-Supermarket286 3h ago

Ah, well, those over-engineered ultra-technical solutions. Sounds good, while you are sitting comfortably in your chair at home, but completely impractical. To give you an example: I was at Rock im Park in Nuremberg this year. And to buy anything, you had to wear an RFID chip. I didn't need camping or merchandise - just a drink and something to eat. Well, you needed to register with all details, address, bank account, create an account. Transfer money to your festival account. Tons of data protection agreements. After the festival you waited for over two weeks, until they transfered back the money to your bank. For a coke. And a burger. This is the price of RFID+money. You will scare a lot of people who never intended littering.

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u/NoPriorThreat 3h ago

Yet, Rock im Park is still fully sold out every year, even with RFID chips to buy drink or meal.

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u/strat-fan89 2h ago

I provided a second, way less technical solution. I am also not a festival organizer. I am just saying, there are methods out there. They each have their shortcomings, I am aware. But if this is the result of doing nothing, then literally anything is better than this. Even not having a festival at all would be preferrable to this. Keep in mind that whatever you do can always be combined with a "I'm sorry we had to do this, but you left us no choice" campaign. Do that for ten years and maybe measures can be dialled back again.

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u/English_Mothafukka 5h ago

You fine the organizers. A heavy enough fine and they will come up with a way of holding people accountable.

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u/retrojoe 4h ago

I went to a festival in Australia where it was normal to bring couches. You had to pay a deposit, they tagged the couch, and you got the deposit back when you proved you were leaving with it.

Granted, tents are more fiddly, but you get the idea.

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u/biggreasyrhinos 3h ago

Maybe require a deposit to bring in a tent, and you get part of it back if you leave with a tent?

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u/Demoliri 1h ago

As simple as this sounds, I actually like it.

When you go on with a tent, you pay a €50 deposit, and get a tent deposit voucher. When you leave, you show your tent and get the €50 back.

The only issue is the logistics, as the morning after a festival is a traffic nightmare at the best of times, but in essence a good idea.

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u/asaintpotatoe 3h ago

It can be done without "Mass Surveillance". Enforcing checkpoints at entry, Pre-Registration for tent tags that require a credit card hold for an event amount, that amount reflects how much you need to enforce, tags can be anything serialized through distributers online (doesn't have to be super sophisticated), a terms and conditions sheet can be made electronically and printed, refunds are dispersed on tracked tents that are then not on record after pickup. Your local City Council should be able to assist in coordinating the events also. Event Coordination being done the right way don't end like this poop pile.

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u/MysticGardenMagic 3h ago

The same way they ticket traffic offenses.

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u/Eveready116 1h ago

Whoever owns the tent gets a printed receipt sticker ahead of the festival and the same code gets logged in a database. You present the sticker WITH the tent on your way out of the venue. It gets scanned and crossed out of the database.

Fine set to $£€ 2000 that gets mailed to your address/ linked to your ID so that the slobs actually clean up after themselves.

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u/Salty_Button 1h ago

I think the fine should be included in the ticket prices. Perhaps their is a element of the ticket price for the clean up as it is part of the event after all. And perhaps that element has just been taken as extra profits? I dread to think of the mess of the other fields with cars and buses. It must take a few years for the ground to fully recover. When you see all this waste it can be difficult to remember that near half of the country live on or below the poverty line. But not round there...

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u/DerDork 1h ago

I know festivals where you get a designated area to camp. One could ask for a deposit for that space. If it’s clean after leave, deposit is released.

I was also organizing car meetings for 16 years. We have had oil-soaking mats for the cars, they were mandatory. The guests all got a bag for trash, a oil mat and left a 10€ deposit at the entry. They we had one container for oil mats, one for general trash. If you threw in your stuff there, you got back your money. Worked well. But yeah. We had like 500 guests or so.

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u/Kodiak01 1h ago

Without mass surveillance, how will they know who each tent belongs to?

They don't need to. Each ticket should have a surcharge sufficient to cover a professional cleaning crew to come through afterward. The level should be right on the edge of punitive.

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u/Old_Man_Shea 4h ago

They Shouldn't be held

-2

u/one-small-plant 5h ago

I guess this is what flock cameras are for!

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u/rocqus 5h ago

Cameras at the event on poles and drones. People get paid commission for each confirmed infraction. Give people incentive to find and charge the transgressors and give people a reason not to abandon their stuff.

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u/secretwatcher 5h ago

It would be much easier to include the cost of cleanup in the ticket.

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u/GitEmSteveDave 5h ago

Which is likely what is done.

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u/vinyljunkie1245 3h ago

The clean up is likely done by volunteers - do 3 eight hour shifts over the weekend for a free ticket or something like that.

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u/Poundaflesh 1h ago

Then people will litter worse figuring they already paid to litter.

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u/JohnDillermand2 6h ago

Or easier is incentivize picking up. Get bands to sign some event merch and give a raffle ticket for each trash bag collected.

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u/nalaloveslumpy 5h ago

Not enforceable and they already do in a round about way.

The venue and the promoter already cover the cost of cleanup after the festival and that cost is part of the ticket price. The bigger the mess that's left the year before, the more expensive next year's ticket.

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u/cardamomgrrl 4h ago

Make the headliner dead last on the schedule and they only go on after the everyone is packed up and the site is clean. 🤔 😜

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u/Beneficial_Put1771 2h ago

They should move the homeless in , you allready have tents

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u/ReallyBigDeal 56m ago

Authorities just need to ban the event until the organizers are able to enforce a leave no trace culture.

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u/Akegata 6h ago

2008 was the last Wacken I went to. There were so many visitors that year that I want allowed in the stage area to see Iron Maiden, there was just not enough space for everyone. I think I left too early to see the aftermath, but with that amount of people I can't imagine it was good. And it's grown significantly in size since then.

It really just wasn't a good time the last time I went. Tons of other festivals had better lineups better infrastructure and just better vibes. Wacken really only exists based on reputation.

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u/sakatan 6h ago

Been to Wacken for the last 3 years: From my experience, the (car) camping sites were extremely clean. Trash got neatly piled up, including trash bags.

No burned tent debauchery at all, sad to say.

Infrastructure in general was very decent. Last year was a bit extreme with the mud, sure, but the management of human masses is ok.

Felt pretty safe, overall.

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u/Akegata 6h ago

That sounds good! I guess they've had 20 years to improve the experience, glad they've done that rather than just making it worse year by year like they did on the 2000's.

To be fair I never felt unsafe in any way (although I don't think that's generally a pattern for men), it was just really poorly executed in general. When I realized there weren't enough toilets for everyone at the festival I instantly knew I'd never return.

But yeah, I'm happy that they've seemingly improved since then.

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u/goodoldgrim 6h ago

What the actual fuck. I've been going to Summer Breeze the last 4 years which is also Germany, a bit smaller than Wacken, but comparable. And I've never seen anything even hinting at this. Not a single fire anywhere but stage pyro. Sunday morning everyone picks up all their shit and piles trash in the indicated locations (and there's not even all that much of it). They do have their "Less trash, more thrash" poster all over the place, but I thought I was just seeing normal German orderliness.

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u/Elwynn_Eldoriath 6h ago

Must be quite the exception for you then. Went to e.g. Sputnik Spring Break quite a few times and others as well, and during leaving hours, there were quite a lot of fires, someone was even stacking a couch and a fridge on a large bonfire, leaving huge trails of thick, black smoke...

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u/Demoliri 2h ago

I've been to Summer Breeze 8 times, first time was 2010. It pretty much replaced Wacken and Hellfest as my "big" festival. Great festival, the biggest weakness always the lack of shade in the festival area, compared to Brutal Assault in Czech where there are large shades seating areas and a nice cool fortress too.

I've never had any problems at Summer Breeze, a bit of rubbish left behind for sure, but not much. The green camping area in particular is always spotless though, on Sunday afternoon it looks just like Monday afternoon before the fest!

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u/MoranthMunitions 6h ago

Maybe I just left too early, but I carried my tent around Europe for 2mo after doing Tomorrowland and Wacken then took it back to Australia. Wasn't particularly convenient, and I could of course afford to have just left / replaced it when I needed another, but it's a pretty decent tent. No regrets. This was like 2023. But yeah we the people I camped with at both properly packed our sites.. I did throw out my Wellington boots after about a week though. That was a bit much to carry around for something I'd never use again.

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u/ollomulder 4h ago

I was there two times in the last years, it was nothing like this, was as civilized as a festival can be.

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u/Enfiznar 4h ago

How did can people be?

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u/Dr-Sprinkl1es 3h ago

I’m so confused, are tent fires a common thing at European festivals? I’ve been to many stateside festivals and have yet to see a tent on fire

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u/Demoliri 1h ago

Outside of Wacken 2010 I also saw it at Hellfest in 2005. Since staying away from the huge festivals I haven't seen it since then either. Other comments have also said that they haven't seen it at recent Wacken Festivals either.

Definitely not common.

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u/PlayfulSurprise5237 1h ago

Isn't it fascinating how it seems to be an inherent human trait to start large fires when enough people gather.

Like it's instinctual, brain only know "need big fire"

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u/Hypochondriaco 7h ago

Damn, I was there in 2009 but I just went for the Arctic Monkeys gig, no camping. Thankfully I lived close to Guildford at the time, so I could make it a one nighter and grab the train back early in the morning.

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u/TurtleReferenceFrame 3h ago

Is this festival about bonfires or reading books 😥

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u/bradstokes 3h ago

In theory, neither.

(Assuming you're not being sarcastic) Reading is a town in the UK, pronounced 'Redding'.

The year in question had The Prodigy playing high up on the line up which got everyone really hyped up. The crowd took this emgery back to the campsites where they made huge bonfires using their tents as fuel.

1

u/Jojo_isnotunique 1h ago

I had that exact experience on the Sunday. I had been working at a bar at Reading in 09 and got to stay at a staff camp site. The last night I stayed with some friends. Massive bonfire of tents. Someone threw a gas canister on at one point. We were going to have a BBQ. Fire marshall came to pour water on it and walked off, ignoring the towering inferno nearby.

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u/bradstokes 19m ago

I guess they were tackling the fires they knew they could actually fight, but it felt absolutely ridiculous at the time.

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u/BLT_Trade_r 47m ago

Tents nowadays have a lot of chemicals in them, which actually seems bad, like lung cancer bad.

1

u/Quixote0630 7h ago

I was also there in 2009 and remember the fires.

The line ups are a steaming pile of shit compared to what they used to be, but it seems other parts are exactly the same as they were back in the day.

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u/bradstokes 4h ago

I have a theory that at some point they decided to cater to 16-18 year olds. And as time goes on they move onto whatever the new 16-18 year olds are listening to. I went to Leeds in 2023 (as a 30 year old) and I felt so old.