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...
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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/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....